Facebook Translation delays
A Belgian court has required Facebook to make changes to its privacy settings in Belgium or face a fine. However, the judgement has not yet been served on Facebook, as the Belgian court is waiting for the 33-page judgement to be translated into English.
The Belgian Privacy Commission (BPC), served the judgement on Facebook on 9th November, requiring it to stop tracking non-Facebook users immediately or face a fine. The Social Media giant was given 48 hours to comply.
The dispute centres over Facebook tracking non-members who visit a page on facebook.com. A cookie is downloaded on to their browser which allows Facebook to track them. The company argues that the cookie helps them to detect account takeover attempts, but the BPC says tracking non-members is an invasion of their privacy.
Facebook’s Chief Security Officer, Alex Stamos, headhunted from rival Yahoo earlier this year, said “This cookie helped us stop more than 33,000 account takeover attempts in Belgium in the last month, and similar cookies are used by most major internet services”
We won’t know the result of the dispute until the translation of the court’s judgement has been provided, and Facebook has responded. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know when that is likely to happen. As things stand, Facebook has been ordered to remove the cookie for non-members and if it fails to comply, it could face fines of up to €250,000 or £180,000 per day.
How to avoid translation delays
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