Facebook’s privacy policy breaches European law, says watchdog

Feb23

by Sindy Cator on February 23, 2015 at 2:02 pm

Facebook’s privacy policy violates European law, according to a study commissioned by the Belgian privacy commission, and released today, The Guardian reports. Conducted by the Centre of Interdisciplinary Law and ICT at the University of Leuven, the report says the social network’s updated policies, which came into effect last month, only expanded previous policy and practices, and violate European consumer protection law. The authors argue that Facebook’s policies on profiling for third-party advertising do not “meet the requirements for legally valid consent” and that it “fails to offer adequate control mechanisms” to prevent user-generated content being used for commercial purposes. The report says:…