Facebook loses privacy case in Germany, ruling may help Europeans protect data

Oops! This was still sitting in “drafts” and never posted the other day, but it’s important, so better a bit late than never, right?

Kate Knibbs reports:

… Germany already scored a privacy win this week: the Higher Court of Berlin ruled that Facebook must follow German data protection laws, and acknowledged that several parts of Facebook’s terms of service and privacy policies are against the law in Germany. As Loek Essers reports for PCWorld, consumer groups are celebrating this ruling as a victory.

This ruling agrees with a 2012 verdict against Facebook’s Friend Finder feature. But this newer ruling, made January 24, contradicts a more recent verdict from a German appeals court. That appeals ruling said that German law wasn’t applicable because the Facebook data was processed by Facebook’s office in Ireland, which is part of the European Union.