Author Archives: Christina Motejl

Facebook’s terms and conditions violate German consumer laws, says court

Christina Motejl | Published: March 7, 2012
In a decision as of 6 March 2012 that covers aspects of consumer rights related to data protection, the Berlin regional court ruled that several clauses of Facebook Ireland Ltd.’s terms and conditions violate German consumer laws and are therefore void (LG Berlin, Judgement of 6 March 2012, 16 O 551/109). Facebook Ireland Ltd. is [...]
Posted in consumer protection, Facebook, Germany, transparency | Leave a comment

EU draft data protection regulation: political discussions have started in Germany

Christina Motejl | Published: January 17, 2012
The draft data protection regulation of the European Commission that had leaked in early December has been widely criticised by the German Minister of the Interior and aFederal Constitutional Court judge. The points of concern were not the new and mainly stricter rules of the draft regulation, but that the European Commission chose a regulation [...]
Posted in Directive 95/46/EC, EU data protection reform, EU Legislation, EU powers, eu proposals, Germany | Leave a comment

Commission’s Draft Regulation on Data Protection – Inspiration from Germany?

Christina Motejl | Published: December 14, 2011
After a first read through of the leaked Commission proposal for a new data protection regulation (Draft Regulation) that was published by statewatch.org (it is not meant to be officially published until the end of January), I remembered a speech by Viviane Reding’s Chief of Cabinet who said that the Commissioner for Justice was very [...]
Posted in EU data protection reform, EU Legislation, eu proposals, Germany, Germany; address lists | Leave a comment

Future of Privacy and Openness in Germany

Christina Motejl | Published: November 30, 2011
Datonomy attended the event “Datendialog” hosted by Google in Berlin on 24 November, where many interesting speakers discussed the current situation and future of privacy, but also openness. Blogger and Science Fiction author Cory Doctorow described the current situation of many free internet offers as “privacy bargain”, in which users traded their personal data for [...]
Posted in data collection, Facebook, Germany, Google | Leave a comment

Facebook – Cookies to be investigated in Germany

Christina Motejl | Published: November 10, 2011
Facebook encounters more and more problems with Germany’s Data Protection Commissioners. Only last month, the Data Protection Commissioner of Schleswig Holstein, Thilo Weichert, announced proceedings against public authorities and companies in Schleswig Holstein that use Facebook’s Like-Button on their websites (see Datonomy post of 6th October). Mr. Weichert criticised that the Like-Button enabled Facebook to [...]
Posted in cookies, cookies; behavioural advertising; google, data collection, Facebook, Germany, opt-outs | 1 Comment

German Public Authorities: You shall not use Facebook!

Christina Motejl | Published: October 6, 2011
The independent Data Protection Commissioner of Schleswig Holstein, Thilo Weichert, has initiated proceedings against public authorities and companies in Schleswig Holstein who use Facebook’s Like-Button on their websites or who operate a Facebook fanpage. The main point of criticism regarding the Facebook Like-Button is that it is directly loaded from the Facebook site, which enables [...]
Posted in cookies; behavioural advertising; google, Facebook, Germany, Google, government data handling, IP address | 1 Comment