Facebook Holding Back Personal Data 125
itwbennett writes "Facebook has reduced the amount of personal data it releases to users as required by European Union law. Due to the volume of requests since Europe v. Facebook began its campaign, Facebook is no longer sending CDs to people. Facebook said in a statement that the CD mailout 'contains a level of detail that is less useful for the average user — it is a much rawer collection of data.' Instead, users are now directed to a page where they can download their personal 'archive,' which according to Facebook is a copy of 'all of the personal information you've shared on Facebook.' But rather than the 57 categories of data early data requesters received, the new tool downloads just 22 categories."
Facebook sends CD's? (Score:4)
The fact that Facebook sends CD's to people never even knew. Is this a euro thing only?
Re:Facebook sends CD's? (Score:5, Informative)
It comes from European privacy laws which the US doesn't have, allowing people to demand to see what information is being stored about them.
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Re:Facebook sends CD's? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Facebook sends CD's? (Score:5, Insightful)
It took me a while to realise that "Free Market" was a synonym for "God" in America: always the right option; solves all problems; inherently moral to follow and immoral to restrict; if it seems to be going wrong then it must be either something else's fault or a means to an end which we are not worthy to understand; etc.
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Yes, it’s a delusional belief. Something quite prevalent in the US. So it's not “god” but the same thing. If you know what I mean.
I realized a second thing: "Free market" also seems to mean "100% completely free". But that would mean freedom from all laws too, wouldn't it? How is this different from the law of the jungle and the right of the strongest then? And how is this not the opposite of democracy, where everybody has equal rights?
(I wonder if they just would call democracy "socialism
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You must be a communist!!1!
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Perhaps not but he's certainly no economist either. I guess you people have your vocabulary and we have ours. Just like you don't want a priest or a pope talking science maybe it's best you don't talk economics.
The Catholic religion had a huge problem with that whole "Gutenberg Bible" printing thing. Now you can read the bible and see what a load of crap it really is.
I took economics in school, as an elective, they gave me a bunch of formulas and then told me they didn't work. Looking at the economic state of the world right now, I'd say that economists don't really have any more of a clue that priests or popes do.
You picked an interesting analogy, two disciplines that require "faith". Faith meaning a load o
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I realized a second thing: "Free market" also seems to mean "100% completely free". But that would mean freedom from all laws too, wouldn't it? How is this different from the law of the jungle and the right of the strongest then? And how is this not the opposite of democracy, where everybody has equal rights? (I wonder if they just would call democracy "socialism" then, for trying to make things equal...)
Well, who do you think promotes such a belief? The rich and powerful of course! The ones who think they'd be at the top of any socio-economic food chain. And yes, a completely free market would be quite opposed to democracy. But again, look who is promoting the idea. The rulers always want the rabble to have as little influence as possible.
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Rather than address the caricature ("crony capitalism"), I'll keep it simple: the free market is nothing more (or less) than a statement that groups of people are both untrustworthy (as individuals and in groups) and yet the only means of efficiently measuring the desires of other people.
So on two points the free market is held up in opposition-- not to government (in se), but to "Stat
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Just looking at fractional reserve under-capitalization (due to criminally-negligent monetary policy), the concomitant fraud in how various mortgage-backed securities were represented, the fraudulent credit-default-swap over-selling, and the ongoing-now MLS fiasco, we're talking about massive, documented fraud for which not one person (to my knowledge ... ?) has gone to jail. Instead, they've all been encouraged via the moral hazard of the bailou
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Too many syllables? Ringo Starr
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Re:Facebook sends CD's? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I remember debates on Slashdot and other forums 10 and 15 years ago about privacy and such. The mindset then was one of hyper-attentiveness to privacy. Absent legislation, companies didn't need to make any changes, and really, reduced even the expectation of privacy from their users. Then a new generation came onto the internet who never even contemplated a world without all this intrusive technology, and like that, the privacy battle was lost.
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But I want all cookies Facebook has about me too!
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"The fact that Facebook sends CD's...?"
After all, it's the new AOL.
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>> Facebook sends CD's to people...?
Yes, this is more evidence that Facebook is the AOL of this decade.
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Facebook sends CD's what?
Facebook sends CD's jewel case?
Facebook sends CD's cover art?
Facebook sends CDs to those who request their data?
Danged apostrophe's!
But I must give free reign to my inner narcissist! (Score:2, Insightful)
What did people THINK was going to happen when they signed up for Facebook and effectively dropped trou to the universe?
And expecting the grubby little data miners to play fair with people who they're making money off of?
Pfft! Yeah. What world are YOU from?
There's one solution to the problem of Facebook belching your data to whoever pays them their pound of flesh.
DON'T FUCKING SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Re:But I must give free reign to my inner narcissi (Score:5, Insightful)
What did people THINK was going to happen when they signed up for Facebook and effectively dropped trou to the universe?
And expecting the grubby little data miners to play fair with people who they're making money off of?
Pfft! Yeah. What world are YOU from?
There's one solution to the problem of Facebook belching your data to whoever pays them their pound of flesh.
DON'T FUCKING SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK IN THE FIRST PLACE!
With most people, that kind of obvious realization breaks down the moment having some control over their own life involves denying oneself a convenience that is dangled in front of them like bait. The form of the convenience could be the service itself that Facebook offers. It could be (for most anyway) failure to bear the always rewarding but sometimes heavy burden of being a real individual, such as having to explain to friends that you have good reason not to use the site even if they would prefer to contact you with it. Of course a real friend would understand and respect that and not demand (by acting hurt, annoyed, etc) that you conform to their example for something so optional, but judging from the way most people talk about bandwagon appeals and peer pressure it seems most people think this kind of manipulation is normal and legitimate.
It's the same reason most boycotts don't get off the ground. The moment people would have to make do without a luxury or prepare something themselves instead of having it pre-packaged or some other test of their commitment to principle, they cave. It doesn't matter what the company has done to make itself unworthy of continued patronage. It's most unfortunate but the masses of people are pushovers who won't take a stand for much of anything unless they feel (correctly or not) that their back is against a wall.
I suppose most of you reading this think it's a good thing that government intervenes to regulate Facebook. If this were food safety or building construction or some other thing that is a matter of life-and-death, where great damage could be done before any reason for a user/customer to suspect a problem has manifested, then I would agree with you. As it stands now with Facebook, I say that the moment you interfere with this process and shelter this kind of spinelessness is the moment you prevent the character growth of those who are badly in need of a lesson. I know it looks like a nice thing to do but that's short-term thinking; in the long run it makes the problem worse.
Those who have a clue, care about privacy, and make their own decisions avoided Facebook from the beginning. The rest are making their beds and should not be prevented from laying in them.
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As it stands now with Facebook, I say that the moment you interfere with this process and shelter this kind of spinelessness is the moment you prevent the character growth of those who are badly in need of a lesson. I know it looks like a nice thing to do but that's short-term thinking; in the long run it makes the problem worse.
You mean... like... until it becomes a felony to break the FB's TOS and create a pseudonymous account?
Those who have a clue, care about privacy, and make their own decisions avoided Facebook from the beginning. The rest are making their beds and should not be prevented from laying in them.
Hmmm... I can see other ends if this goes unchecked... like until it will be a felony not to have a FB account? By peer-pressure initially and eventually by the law of the land (that land of the home and free of the brave)?
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Not having a Facebook account interferes with interstate commerce by preventing advertisers from accessing data about your personal life. It is now mandated that all US citizens have a Facebook account and post regularly on it.
The above might be assumed to be an absurdity, but the logic behind it is an argument the DoJ is currently arguing before the Supreme Court. Congress already has had the authority to prevent personal use and consumption upheld. They can fine farmers for producing any crop for personal
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For people of a certain age, virtually all of their friends use Facebook as a primary means of communication. In other words, not using Facebook means social isolation. That's not a particularly worthwhile tradeoff, nor is it even a guarantee of privacy. You don't need an account on Facebook for people to post things about you. I have friends who post tons of photos of their young children and the funny things their children say.
In other words, let's say that you don't have a FB account, yet somehow still m
Re:But I must give free reign to my inner narcissi (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, not using Facebook means social isolation
Oh shit, you mean standing up for your ideals might involve some mild inconvenience? Well fuck that!
That's not a particularly worthwhile tradeoff
But if three or four of you do it then your other friends will not be able to rely on Facebook for communication within the group. So they'll start using other mechanisms, and eventually Facebook just fades into the background as 'that thing I can use for communicating with a few of my friends' and their usage starts to drop too and Facebook becomes a passing fad, rather than a dominant communication mechanism. Or you can just say 'well everyone else is doing it' (which, after all, was such a good excuse every other time it was used) and sign up.
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Or get better friends...
If your friends do not respect you enough to respect your privacy, then they are not your friends. They are people using you for their own entertainment and you need to wake up and stand up for yourself.
If you know your friends are going to be disrespectful and post stupid pictures of you on Facebook and this bothers you, don't do the stupid things you don't want appearing on Facebook in front of them. How is it different from your friends running around telling everyone that you a
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In other words, let's say that you don't have a FB account, yet somehow still manage to find out about a party. Is it still possible for FB to learn of your attendance at said party and your amusing (yet seemingly private) actions at said party? Yes, because anybody at the party can post a photo of you at the party to FB and put your name on it.
This is correct, and I don't understand (ok, well I sorta do) why more people don't consider this a problem. At a time when employers, law enforcement, intelligence agencies and ex-girlfriends are combing Facebook, etc. looking for wrongdoing, I value my privacy more than ever. I don't have a problem with my picture happening to show up on someone's website. What I don't like is all the linking, tagging, archiving and connecting. I don't feel a need to help someone build a profile of me and my life for
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For that matter, was that drunk guy with no shorts on even you? Or did someone just label it with your name? (Could be either by accident or on purpose.)
And the cute thing is, if you don't have a Facebook account, you won't even know about it.
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Yeah. As someone who grew up in Massachusetts, and mostly remained there until i was in my late 20's, that's where my friends and family are. Nowadays, I live in Florida and find that Facebook is a great way to stay in contact with everyone up there. So, despite my earlier postings of waning privacy, tossing my privacy aside in order to stay in touch with family and friends is something I've thought through and decided is appropriate to do.
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I suppose most of you reading this think it's a good thing that government intervenes to regulate Facebook. If this were food safety or building construction or some other thing that is a matter of life-and-death, ...
Except that the European law applies to all companies handling any kind of personal information. If it weren't for the law, you would have even less control of the personal information stored about you.
And while you don't list privacy among the list of most important things to you, some people would. Quality of life is pretty important too.
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Your entire post is nothing but self-rightouesness. I particularly enjoy how a friend who acts hurt or annoyed that you don't use Facebook is because they're not a real friend and can't respect your making decisions for yourself, yet people who choose to use Facebook must be because they don't have a clue, care about privacy or make their own decisions. Somehow "not use Facebook" is a decision and "use Facebook" is peer pressure conformity by weak-willed clueless people. Okay then.
Have you ever enterta
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Please do not oppose good actions the government takes--just limit it to the bad.
Ticket Status: Deferred
If/When the government gets to a point where it can take good actions, instead of (maliciously OR incompetently) horrible ones, we will revisit your request.
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So, ALL current government actions are bad? Or is it a single flaw in your mindset that this would be the case?
But perhaps I misinterpreted your post and you were making a joke on the Tea-party level of thinking but spoiled it by using too eloquent words.
Bert
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So, ALL current government actions are bad?
No, just the ones OUR government have elected to take, in recent memory. Admittedly, there might be an anomaly hidden in the noise, but I'm pretty sure that if it's not a blatant power/money grab, then we can count on it to be a total clusterfuck (often turning into a power/money grab, a la the healthcare bill).
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Sometimes I wonder, are some people really so utterly stupid as to believe that a few overblown anomalies that get plastered all over the news for their high sell value are actually norm, and the myriad of normal actions taken by government that have no news value because they do exactly or close to exactly what they are supposed to do are anomalies.
Then we have a poster like one above, and my belief in humanity dies a little more.
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"Sometimes I wonder, are some people really so utterly stupid as to believe that a few overblown anomalies that get plastered all over the news for their high sell value are actually norm, and the myriad of normal actions taken by government that have no news value because they do exactly or close to exactly what they are supposed to do are anomalies."
Many people have a vested interest in believing everything the government does is bad. It helps prop up their anti-tax anti-regulations beliefs and helps them
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Sometimes I wonder, are some people really so utterly stupid as to believe that a few overblown anomalies that get plastered all over the news for their high sell value are actually norm, and the myriad of normal actions taken by government that have no news value because they do exactly or close to exactly what they are supposed to do are anomalies.
Apparently so. Right wing movements with pre-digested news are popular here in the US, precisely because you don't have to think much when you follow populists like Ron "Dr. No" Paul.
Blame politicians who are always corrupt, unlike the businessmen who only have your best interest at heart.
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I like how you and sibling post assume I'm a teabagger.
The truth is, in the past ten years, it really does seem to be the norm, and it's more lack of any faith in humanity (I'm just clearly further along than you are). I guess it's because I had the audacity to mention the healthcare bill that your little internal DFAs short-circuited right to 'Right wing.'
I would have been all for it, if it had actually done what they originally said it was going to do, re. the public option. By removing that, it's just a
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Or, you know, just give them inconsequential minutiae.
Any communication I have on there is pretty much worthless anyway, because I don't put anything important or private on facebook.
It is possible to use it without posting pictures of that time you were passed out, naked and drunk, in the fountain in the town square...
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But those are the pictures my friends want to see!
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I don't
So does slashdot!
I browse through a tunnel to home. Besides which, my employer lists my name in their public directory and has a class A. (I'm sure you've deduced who they are, I obviously do not speak for them in anything I say here, standard disclaimer)
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there's several solutions, the best of both worlds being sign up but DON'T OVERSHARE.
don't "like" stuff, make no reference to products or specific activities in your status updates, etc. just post with the knowledge that anything you say can and will be sold to the highest bidder.
as happens on every site that requires login. even posting as AC will still log your IP and correlate it with whatever the cookie can grab hold of.
Re:But I must give free reign to my inner narcissi (Score:5, Informative)
Irrelevant.
Here in the EU, you're the owner of your data. You have the right to request from any company that has personally identifiable data on you for any reason, to request it to be corrected, or to request it to be deleted.
There are also limits on how the information can be used.
Compliance with this isn't optional. There are big sanctions for not complying with the requirements, which go as high half a million Euro for the "very grave" category in some countries. And since at least where I am, the agency is self-financed, they're quite keen on collecting those.
Don't like it? Don't do business in the EU.
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If you don't want to adhere to EU privacy laws, don't do business in the EU. What is so difficult in that?
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Oh look kids, another delusional soul who still think Facebook only spies on registered users!
Do you see those Facebook buttons everywhere? I don't know how's the situation right now, but just a few months ago they were creating these little cookies with IDs even if you didn't have an account (like I don't). Which means they could log each and every site you went to and create a single profile from it.
So please shut the fuck up the next time, yes?
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Oh look kids, another delusional soul who still think Facebook only spies on registered users!
Do you see those Facebook buttons everywhere? I don't know how's the situation right now, but just a few months ago they were creating these little cookies with IDs even if you didn't have an account (like I don't). Which means they could log each and every site you went to and create a single profile from it.
So please shut the fuck up the next time, yes?
What's with the belligerent tone?
The Facebook buttons and their cookies are easily blocked. Anyone who cares about this can take the ten minutes necessary to understand how this tracking is done and configure their system(s) to refuse such content. The default choice, the result of doing nothing, is that you get spied on. That makes them a bunch of dicks to be sure, but it's not a big surprise. When in this life have you ever chosen to learn nothing and to do nothing and then received a result you fo
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What's with the belligerent tone?
Parent's post irked me on a bad day.
The Facebook buttons and their cookies are easily blocked. Anyone who cares about this can take the ten minutes necessary to understand how this tracking is done and configure their system(s) to refuse such content. The default choice, the result of doing nothing, is that you get spied on. That makes them a bunch of dicks to be sure, but it's not a big surprise. When in this life have you ever chosen to learn nothing and to do nothing and then received a result you found to be ideal?
Yes, and Wilson just had to go to that spot in his house.
And as we can see with parent's post, lots of people don't even realize that tracking, particularly when logged out, is even possible - that thought may simply never crossed their mind.
Would people be better off if they blocked it? Sure. But just because one can block it doesn't mean one should have to. That's why we have laws that define what is and isn't appropriate.
If you want to be in the backseat and take a passive role in your experience because you think that's someone else's responsibility ... then someone else will decide for you how that turns out. The minority who remain expect to get out of it what they are willing to invest into it and are not disappointed. In the face of an active adversary (a loaded word but appropriate since I did not invite them to attempt to track me), the mentality which desires to remain totally passive and then complain about the result is little more than a spoiled brat.
To be active to act on X, there has to be consc
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To be active to act on X, there has to be conscious that X even exists. As I said, plenty of people aren't. They aren't passive, just oblivious.
I think you have two choices here. Either embrace a permanent state of victimhood and accept that as the highest knowable reality available... or understand that being oblivious comes from using a thing without ever learning more and more about it over time, without ever investigating how it works and what the pitfalls are, without seeking to understand its ramifications.
I know many people do that and I consider it something of a miracle that they don't suffer quite a bit more than they do. Still, I vi
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Frankly, while I do agree that people can and should educate themselves, I find that discussion pointless, unless you have suggestions on how to change that culture - personally, I don't.
I think the important discussion is: taking as a premise that people don't and won't educate themselves, should there be legal mechanisms to prevent companies like Facebook from tracking people?
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Ops, it's Winston, not Wilson. Damn my weak memory.
This is information you gave them. (Score:1, Insightful)
With a few exceptions, this is all data that you GAVE to Facebook willingly. This isn't like a credit reporting agency having information on you they got from other sources. You gave them everything they have and now you are upset they have it or won't tell you exactly what you gave them? Seems a bit silly to tell a secret to someone that you don't trust...
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You are ignoring the fact that others can tag and post about you. You do not control the actions of all of your Facebook friends.
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no i'm not. I choose my friends carefully and maintain damage control (not that this has been necessary yet).
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What about their friends and their friends of friends and assorted hanger-ons? There are some things damage control can't cover. If I'm gonna be caught with a small mountain of blow and and a dead transvestite named Chastity in my bed, then I'd rather it all stay small-town and not get plastered all over the world. Just to be clear - that has absolutely never happened to me. Her name was Lucy.
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I'm not using facebook, I have no account, but still they're collecting data about me.
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And you are ignoring that you can turn up approval for all mentions of you before going to your wall.
Once someone do something bad about you, you will have the chance to do not approve the post (on your wall, you cant do nothing about the other's walls) and file a complain.
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I agree. I use facebook responsibly (I think), and i'm more pissed that I can't get the dirt on others, than I am pleased that my own small blemishes are "protected". it's in quotes because of course they're still accessible to Them, just not us.
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In many cases, it's difficult to know exactly what you're giving facebook. Did you know that facebook tracks every profile you visit?
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i'm not surprised, and I don't really care.
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:5, Informative)
It seems probable that most users underestimate what information Facebook is collecting about them.
http://lifehacker.com/5843969/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it [lifehacker.com]
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a mild concern.
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:4, Informative)
They deduce it. Similar names, similar locations, similar employment workplaces and similar school history. This provides possible links to several people in their database, and when several of those people have a network of interrelations, they can just ask if you know the most probable ones. As soon as she answers 'yes' or 'no' then facebook know stuff about her that is not deduction, but they can deduce more..
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A few ways. The simplest one is that those people provided that person's email address. If multiple people did, they can look at mutual friends. They can use their tracking cookie to see which public Facebook pages the new person has visited, including groups (and assume that they know members of those groups). They can do the same thing for any site with a like button - if the site is related to some event or club, then they can assume that you know people who are in that club.
You can infer a huge a
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The people Facebook suggested uploaded their address books to Facebook, and once she created her account, Facebook already had those users with her email address in their address book, so it just showed her those people, as well as maybe some mutual friends those people shared.
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People change their mind and are entitled to be able to delete that data. Facebook also fails to ensure minors are prevented published UN-authorised images of other minors. Facebook also fails to warn people of the consequences of uploading information, like warning we could sell this to your employer, warning employment agencies reference this web site etc.
Also this reaches beyond facebook and it is interesting how other more socially advanced locales are doing more to protect the rights of individuals
Re:This is information you gave them. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lot more info they have about you, that you didn't give them voluntarily.
Facebook cookies track your movements on third-party web sites. Until recently logging off from Facebook did not help (reported extensively on /. over the last months).
Facebook tries to recognise and automatically tag people in other people's photos: you're in your friend's photo, are tagged automatically or by that friend, and another bit of information about you becomes available to Facebook and it's out of your control.
You may be mentioned (tagged) in a friend's comment. Again you didn't volunteer that information about you to Facebook, someone else does, and you don't have control about it.
You can not delete comments or photos. Many people think they can as there is a "delete" function, but all it does is hide this information from you and other users. It's not gone as in deleted, it's merely hidden, and is still there.
You can not close and delete your account. You can't even close it afaik.
All this info on Facebook is there forever, out of your control. And the last part is maybe the most damning of all. There is no control over your own data on Facebook. They pretend to give you some (by allowing "delete") but in reality they don't (it's not deleted). They collect info about you that is not given by you, instead it's collected automatically and is info that is about things you do outside of Facebook. Those things should worry people. It is not about the info you put in your profile, it's not about what you write yourself in your comments or the photos you post yourself, not even about the external links in friend's messages that you click. It's the rest of the information that's gathered in the background, unknown to you, out of your control.
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>>You can not close and delete your account. You can't even close it afaik.
Yes, you can...or at least they will provide the illusion that it's closed/deleted.
Here's a link to the "Delete Facebook" group containing instructions and further details. I started the deletion process myself yesterday, and as long as I don't log in for 14 days, FB claims it will be permanently deleted. Of course I don't believe for a millisecond that my personal content will actually BE deleted.
http://www.facebook.com/grou [facebook.com]
re: the info gatherd in the background (Score:2)
IMO, it's not even the "information gathering" that's necessarily the real problem here. As soon as I started using Facebook and realized they were giving me unlimited access to the service for free, plus coding mobile applications to make it even more convenient to use (which were, again, free), I knew there were "catches" involved. Obviously, Facebook is no charity, and they're not making enough money on the little banner ads to pay for the whole infrastructure and bandwidth it uses.
So sure, they're "da
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Totally irrelevant. It doesn't matter where the data came from, or how it was collected. If you hold personal data on a person, you are legally required to provide it to that person on request. All of it. There's no exception for data that the person gave you willingly, there's no exception for data that's "less useful for the average user", and there's no exception for "data that would reveal our trade secrets", which is the excuse Facebook used for withholding some data the last time.
This is nothing to do
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Some you give willingly. Other stuff, not so willingly. For instance if you're logged into your account and leave facebook to view another site, and that site has put a "Like" button on their page, guess what? The like button phones home and facebook knows what sites you've been visiting, without you consciously providing them that information.
To me, that's a lot more damaging to having any remaining shred of privacy than what we've each actively provided it (by posting text or pictures, etc). And it's not
related question: (Score:2)
does slashdot offer a SELECT COMMENTS FROM ARCHIVE WHERE UID=xxx type service?
i've been posting here for awhile, and i am a narcissist
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slashdot.org/~circletimessquare
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No I mean all time, not just the last few comments
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You can press the "Many More" button - setting up a script to get all of them is trivial with greasemonkey, and even more trivial if you spend a bit of time clicking. There doesn't appear to be another way of getting at posts, but all of them seem available, and all of them are easy to get at. I suppose you could also deconstruct whatever call is pulling the posts and try to get them all in one go.
Re:related question: (Score:4, Informative)
Or, go to your account options, go to the Discussions "tab" and for "Retrieve [ ] Messages" option select "Many" then it will retrieve all of them providing you are logged in.
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Subscribers can see full comment history.
Um, hang on. (Score:1, Flamebait)
In other news, Facebook replaces an unnecissarily obtuse CD mailout service with a download service that sounds pretty useful. Has anyone here even bothered to mail out for your CD? Now you can download it, export it, do whatever you want with it.
All at the expense of some tracking information that can't really tell you anything about your own browsing habits than you already know, it's not like they're compelled to give their analysis of that data, simply what pages you refreshed when. If they correlate th
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"All at the expense of some tracking information that can't really tell you anything about your own browsing habits than you already know, it's not like they're compelled to give their analysis of that data, simply what pages you refreshed when. If they correlate that to find you tend to search for ponography featuring chubby women after visiting your cousin's profile, that's their information, not yours."
Sorry, but you're completely wrong on that as far as the EU is concerned. The legal definition of perso
The archive file is really small... (Score:2)
We cannot tell anything without seeing sample data (Score:3)
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It could also be the categories have merged in to fewer more general ones.
It's always been like that in the UK (Score:1)
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They've never offered, but they are obligated to under EU law.
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It's not about being more safe. The CD that they were providing contained a LOT more data than the archive you could download from their site.
Is it enough? (Score:1)
I'm curious if the categories available for download will be considered enough in the long run to satisfy the EU laws. If they know there are more categories and that they're not providing it all, is that considered holding back to much by those laws?
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That info is just a very small subset of what Facebook were providing in their CDs that people were requesting.
Facebook doesn't hurt anyone (Score:1)