Germany orders changes to Facebook real name policy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20766682

by denzil_correa • 14 years ago

83 114 14 years ago

bbc.co.uk

sovok• 14 years ago

Maybe not that big of a deal. If Facebook doesn't comply, they only have to pay 20000€: http://translate.google.de/translate?twu=1?sl=de&tl=en&#...

Xylakant• 14 years ago

Maybe more of a deal is that this is the first step in the legal battle. Now Facebook can appeal or ignore but that opens up to get a court injunction all the way up to the european courts until you get a decision on the highest level. Without a first injunction, none of that would be possible.

jeltz7• 14 years ago

That is only their first fine. If German law is similar to Swedish law here nothing prevents future fines if FB just chose to ignore the ruling and pay the fine.

Hopka• 14 years ago

It's interesting because there are several German social networks (XING, StudiVZ, wer-kennt-wen, ...) that also do not allow their users to use pseudonyms. As far as I know, none of them have been ordered to change their policies.

sdoering2• 14 years ago

Yepp. As good, as one might find this move from the German regulators, one must wonder, why only one network is targeted. But that is nothing new here in Germany. Most often it is one symbolic network (often times Google), that is the target. So one might suspect, that this is nothing more than symbolic policy.

The data-protecting people in our government are toothless kittens, they have no real influence and these moves seem to me only to be made, to show, that they are still there and to justify their existence.

Sad to see, but there does not seem to be any real chance, that this will change.

drucken• 14 years ago

So, this "decree" has no meaning even if fought in a German legal court?

jeltz7• 14 years ago

You sure about this? My interpretation is that they chose one site to test the case in court and will then if successful go after the others.

fs111• 14 years ago

the VZs are dead, wer-kennt-wen is also dying and not using real names on XING does not make much sense IMO. I guess, they only care about the real big fish in the pond for now.

rmc13• 14 years ago

I would presume that they will have to change their policies soon if this is the new interpretation of the law.

feint4• 14 years ago

Shouldn't Facebook be allowed to do what it likes? Regulating how an internet company chooses to run its product is very worrying.

scotty79• 14 years ago

Law is law. If there can be laws against sharing copyrighted works or child porn why not the law against soliciting from people their real names?

feint4• 14 years ago

Because you're not forcing people to register for the service.

"Law is Law" - my point is that this shouldn't be the law.

mhurron• 14 years ago

If you operate in a country you still have to follow that countries laws. Being an 'internet company' doesn't change that.

Now for this specific case, whether Facebook has offices in Germany or if they sell to Germans, I don't know but if any of those are true they may have to abide by by these laws.

Also, no, no company should be allowed to do what it likes.

terhechte• 14 years ago

They have offices in Germany (albeit not in Schleswig-Holstein, as far as I know, though close to it, in Hamburg).

hdra• 14 years ago

I have been curious about these things for a while. When is an internet company considered breaking the law, if all they do is put their product online and make it accessible on the internet (i.e. from everywhere)?

Say, a web app X that shows a collections of cat pictures uploaded by the users, and country Y where cat pictures are banned in every media. How does this work?

rmc13• 14 years ago

You mean should we abolish all laws? No, no we shouldn't.

feint4• 14 years ago

No of course not. But regulating such a ridiculous issue is a waste of money and anti-competitive.

VMG2• 14 years ago

Most people will respond with "law is law". The more interesting question in my opinion is "should there be laws regulating voluntary agreements". If somebody has a problem with Facebook, they can just not register. Some claim "everybody else has Facebook so I have to use it as well", but if you equate societal pressure to involuntary action, you are opening a can of worms.

dexen• 14 years ago

> The more interesting question in my opinion is "should there be laws regulating voluntary agreements".

Yes, and they serve important function -- leveling the playing field in case of strong imbalance between the parties.

Consider for example employment -- in many cases, employers have stronger bargaining position against singular employees or candidates, and could strong-arm individuals into one-sided deals. Thus most countries have certain degree of regulation of employment, providing some basic standard for the employment deals.

Having said that, I still can't reconcile with the idea of every website being subject to local laws of every country it is accessed from, merely by the fact that somebody visited the site from within this particular country.

In case of using a website, the active party is the user, and the website operator is the passive party. If anything, local law should bind the users, not the operators.

How about the German government went instead, ``Under penalty of XYZ, citizens ((of Germany)) may not use social networking website which require disclosure of real names as a precondition''? While this apparently puts pressure on users alone, Facebook would have to weight the real-name policy vs. losing a large, country-wide market.

rmc13• 14 years ago

The more interesting question in my opinion is "should there be laws regulating voluntary agreements".

This is the core of the libertarian stance, that there should be no laws that can override voluntary agreements. However this means no minimum wage laws, no employee protection laws, no anti-discrimination laws etc. The outcome of "law can never override contracts" is untenable to me, so yes, I think there should be laws regulating voluntary agreements.

draq2• 14 years ago

The change in policy is demanded by the "Independent State Centre for Data Protection, Schleswig-Holstein", a public institution of a constituent state, but not a court of law.

It will probably go through all the court instances, before a conclusion is reached. So let's talk about it next year.

jeltz7• 14 years ago

I am pretty sure it might take more than one year since this should end up in the European Court.

rmc13• 14 years ago

this should end up in the European Court

Eh? I'm not sure such a thing called "the European Court" exists...

rmc13• 14 years ago

Depends. Some countries empower the local data protection commission to make binding injunctions forcing a company/person to do/not do a thing. I know Ireland has this. No idea of Germany, but presume it's similar.

So, yes, this might have the same legal force as a court injunction.

darklajid11• 14 years ago

Interesting.

That _might_ (if enforced and extended) make G+ useable for me again. I understand that the controversy around the decision, but I've to admit that I'm very happy about this move.

summerdown22• 14 years ago

Me too. I'm a big fan of pseudonyms, and G+'s real name policy is the only reason I'm not using it.

gambiting2• 14 years ago

Comments like this: "It is unacceptable that a US portal like Facebook violates German data protection law unopposed and with no prospect of an end"

Make me realize that there are still people who do not understand how the Internet works. There are no boarders on the Internet. German people are under no obligation whatsoever to use "a US portal".

vegardx• 14 years ago

I'd argue that we should listen very carefully to what Germany has to say on the matter, historically, they know and have learned from past mistakes.

Also, Facebook has a data center in Finland, which is under EU-jurisdiction. Germany has a lot of say internally in EU, so Facebook could very quickly be subject to such laws - as they should!

stfu2• 14 years ago

Facebook has quite a few offices in Europe. However most are probably just selling ads and doing localization.

Dublin, Ireland; Hamburg, Germany; London, UK; Madrid, Spain; Milan, Italy; Paris, France; Stockholm, Sweden

junto• 14 years ago

Facebook operates in Germany, therefore it is bound by the regulations of that country. In the same manner that it would break German law if it openly promoted antisemitism.

Facebook can chose not to operate and offer services to German customers within Germany if it doesn't like the laws of that country.

Every country has the right to define its own laws that (in general) are there to protect its citizens. Companies who operate in a country are bound by those laws, whether they like them or not.

Privacy is very important to Germans. They have learnt from experience that it is very dangerous to centralize identifying information within the hands of a single ruling entity.

lotu• 14 years ago

Does Facebook actually have offices in Germany? If not does Germany really have jurisdiction.

fauigerzigerk2• 14 years ago

What does it mean to operate in a country? I don't think running a website that doesn't block access from a particular country can be interpreted as operating in that country. Maybe Facebook does more than that, e.g. sell advertising in Germany.

mseebach6• 14 years ago

> Privacy is very important to Germans. They have learnt from experience that it is very dangerous to centralize identifying information within the hands of a single ruling entity.

Never mind that this is very close to Godwining the discussion: There is a world and then some of difference to telling a private company your real name and being physically forced to detail the ethnicity of your entire family to the government.

It's also rampant survivor-bias (although the name of that bias is awfully inappropriate in this context). Plenty of countries did (and still do) plenty of registration of citizen's private data without subsequently mass murdering them.

yxhuvud• 14 years ago

True, but it can make it a lot harder for facebook to sell ads in Germany. While the userbase is international and can move between borders at will, the same is not true of the monetization flows.

erikpukinskis• 14 years ago

I think Germany understands full well how the internet works:

Nations all over the world block content that violates their laws... from the Tiananmen Square Wikipedia page being blocked by China to megaupload.com being blocked by the U.S.

Certainly Germany cannot prevent you from running a server in India and publishing to Indians, but they certainly can prevent you from broadcasting to Germans, and if you want to do so, you have to play by their laws.

gambiting2• 14 years ago

No,because technically if I run a server in the US, and a german user connects to my website, I should not be bothered by the german laws,and there is nothing the German government can make me do with my website. If they don't like their citizens accessing my server,they can block it inside their national network, but saying that I should conform to their laws is preposterous. I imagine that everyone happily complies with Saudi Arabia's requests to remove pictures of women driving, from every single website on the Internet, because that violates their laws. Internet does not know boarders - I run a server, if you want to access it from within your country - cool,but I am not going to bother with your country's laws,because it wouldn't make any sense to do so.

darklajid11• 14 years ago

Tell that to the people that take down .com domains for violating US rules.

marknutter14• 14 years ago

This is ridiculous. If you don't like services that require your full name, don't use them. It's clear people like those services. The biggest appeal of Facebook is that you can connect with people from your past by typing their names into search or being connected to them through your current FB friends. If half the people on FB have pseudonyms it will make the process of reconnecting with old friends and family frustrating to the point of uselessness.

joelthelion• 14 years ago

>If you don't like services that require your full name, don't use them

Except Facebook has a monopoly, minors are using it, and so on. Face it, in Europe we have a different understanding of the role of the State and if you want to do business in here, you'll have to abide by our rules.

mseebach6• 14 years ago

> Except Facebook has a monopoly

No they don't, especially not in Germany. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ

marknutter14• 14 years ago

Your definition of a monopoly in Europe must be very different than ours.

oleganza• 14 years ago

If you dig into definition of monopoly, you'll be surprised that everybody has a monopoly on themselves. Important thing is that Facebook does not have monopoly on you, but your government does. If monopoly is evil, then deal with your government first. If it is not, then why worry about Facebook?

fauigerzigerk2• 14 years ago

There is no consensus in Europe that the role of government includes protecting us against our own deliberate choices. Particularly not against choices that we can reverse any time we want. And the law we're talking about is not a European law. It's a German law.

I'm glad we do have a European law that mandates websites to delete personal data at the request of users. That gives us the freedom to leave if we no longer agree with the rules a website makes.

I actually deleted my Facebook account partly because they asked "friends" to report "friends" who didn't use their real name. I also don't like to be mislead and spied upon in the most egregious ways possible.

Facebook is only a monopoly if all my friends decide to enforce it by keeping me out of the loop if I'm not on Facebook. Real friends don't do that.

rmc13• 14 years ago

I don't think monopoly or not status matters to data protection law, which this might fall under. Sure, the USA (say) with anti-monopoly law but no data protection law, this might be an important point, but in EU we have monopoly law and data protection law.

beedogs• 14 years ago

Half the people I know on Facebook have changed their displayed name to some combination of their first, last, middle, or other name. They still appear to be 'valid' names, but I reckon they'd get asked to change them if Facebook ever demanded they provide proof of identification.

Not sure what to make of your claim that it's "clear" people "like" Facebook because of this requirement. People put up with it, perhaps, but I know plenty of normal everyday people on FB who aren't really playing by the rules.

marknutter14• 14 years ago

If people going through the hassle of signing up for your service isn't an indication that they like your service, we're all in a lot of trouble here at HN.

mseebach6• 14 years ago

The fact that it's clearly possible to use a pseudonym on Facebook makes the German complaint even more silly. But the fact remains that Facebook has decided to have this rule because they believe it makes the product better. That decision is theirs to make, and people can flaunt it (as many do) or decide not to join.

darklajid11• 14 years ago

"If half the people on FB have pseudonyms it will make the process of reconnecting with old friends and family frustrating"

Why? How so? And - why do we care? If users want to choose their name, how is it relevant if it's frustrating for _other_ people to be unable to locate them?

How many people are searching the ex-gf/-bf by name to stalk and see what they're up to?

Isn't it very frustrating as well if people got married and - whoa - just give Facebook their _current_ 'real name'. You wouldn't be able to find them. Maybe the service should require you to list the maiden name, blocking you for failing to do so?

And - frankly: I know more people on FB with 'fake' names than with 'real' ones. Family, friends, random acquaintances, 70% don't use their real name. The range is from fantasy names (like, obviously invalid/~random~), to play on words/phrases (localized variants of 'Some Dude' or similar) to the braindead exercise of writing your name backwards (you'd be there as "Kram Rettun").

Against the TOS? Yeah, sure. Impossible to enforce for localized jokes or seemingly valid names anyway. And quite frankly, if it's 'frustrating' for people that want to search for old contacts is really, really not interesting _for those users_.

marknutter14• 14 years ago

> Why? How so? And - why do we care? If users want to choose their name, how is it relevant if it's frustrating for _other_ people to be unable to locate them?

Well, because that's the way Facebook works. They made a decision early on to require real names because most of the value of Facebook hinged upon the ease of finding friends and family. Imagine if the white pages allowed people to use pseudonyms. It wouldn't be worth much, would it?

> How many people are searching the ex-gf/-bf by name to stalk and see what they're up to?

Dunno, lots? Who cares?

> And - frankly: I know more people on FB with 'fake' names than with 'real' ones. Family, friends, random acquaintances, 70% don't use their real name. The range is from fantasy names (like, obviously invalid/~random~), to play on words/phrases (localized variants of 'Some Dude' or similar) to the braindead exercise of writing your name backwards (you'd be there as "Kram Rettun").

This is purely anecdotal but I would put the rate of actual names used among my friends at around 99%. Now, granted, that may because I haven't found the acquaintances from my past who do use fake names, but that only bolsters my point. If most people used fake names then a large part of the appeal of Facebook would dissipate.

> Isn't it very frustrating as well if people got married and - whoa - just give Facebook their _current_ 'real name'. You wouldn't be able to find them. Maybe the service should require you to list the maiden name, blocking you for failing to do so?

Facebook has a solution for the maiden name problem, btw, (by allowing users to enter an "alternate name")[https://www.facebook.com/help/131728300237162/], and again, this is purely anecdotal, but I see a very high percentage of people in my network taking advantage of this feature. I would wager it's because most people want to be found by their friends and family.

> Against the TOS? Yeah, sure. Impossible to enforce for localized jokes or seemingly valid names anyway. And quite frankly, if it's 'frustrating' for people that want to search for old contacts is really, really not interesting _for those users_.

I don't personally have a problem with people circumventing Facebook's TOS and I'd gather that Facebook probably doesn't care all that much either. What I do have a problem with is a government arbitrarily setting a TOS for a website that people can choose whether or not to use.

rmc13• 14 years ago

However if the law says that you must be able to use them without giving your full name then the service must abide by that.

awayand• 14 years ago

|If you don't like services that require your full name, don't use them.

Similarly, if you don't like to provide pseudonyms, don't do business in Germany. Power always does what it wants, this time it is the German government with the upper hand.

marknutter14• 14 years ago

So how exactly do you not do business in Germany if you're a website like Facebook? Do you just cancel all the accounts of people who listed their home country as Germany? What about people who were born in Germany but don't live there anymore? If I'm visiting Germany, will Facebook not work for me? And how exactly will Germany's public respond if they simply block them from using their service? I would wager people would be fairly upset.

jamestc• 14 years ago

Luckily the thing that all websites are missing when they ask you to fill in a name field is the ability to verify whether or not it is actually your name.

wheels• 14 years ago

For the folks questioning jurisdiction, that's moot on several counts, most notably since Facebook has had a German daughter company ("Facebook Germany GmbH") since 2009.

marknutter14• 14 years ago

So suppose Facebook dissolves that daughter company. What then?

draq2• 14 years ago

Those who reads German may be interested in reading the official press release (https://www.datenschutzzentrum.de/presse/20121217-facebook-k...), including the decrees to Facebook Inc./USA and Facebook Ltd./Ireland.

Non-professional summary and translation:

I. Facebook is obligated by law to provide the following for the natural persons who want to use www.facebook.com in Schleswig-Holstein:

1. It must be possible to register with a pseudonym.

2. Accounts of registered users whose registration is blocked because of incomplete disclosure or non-disclosure of their real information must be reactivated.

3. Users are to be informed on www.facebook.com about the possibility to register with a pseudonym before the registration.

II. The immediate execution of the provision I. N°2 is decreed.

III. If Facebook does not implement the provisions of I. within two weeks after the delivery of this notice, it will be handed out a penalty of 20,000 EUR.

Germany orders changes to Facebook real name policy

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