According to the European Court of Justice, websites that contain a like-button from Facebook are co-responsible for the collection of data. These websites are also responsible for sending the data to the social network.
The decision was made in a case about the German website Fashion ID, NU.nl writes. Plaintiffs argue that the website collected data about users via the Facebook Like button without asking permission.
This like-button allows users to follow the company on Facebook. In addition, the social medium uses the button to discover which users have been on a particular page. On this basis, profiles are created for advertisements, among other things.
The European Court now holds that not only Facebook is responsible for the collection of data, but also Fashion ID. This means that the website must inform users of the sharing of the data with the social medium.
European websites
The conclusion of the European court may have various consequences for future cases and other European websites.
In the future, this may mean, for example, that websites are not allowed to just show the like-button. After all, according to the European Privacy Act GDPR, users must give permission for the collection and processing of data.
It is possible that in the future websites will have to ask for more explicit permission to show the like-button, which means that the data will be forwarded to Facebook.
Facebook responsible
However, the responsibility of the website stops when the data is transferred to Facebook. The social medium is the only one responsible for the data once it has it in its hands.
According to the court, a website cannot be held liable for what happens to the data when it reaches Facebook.
The judgment of the European Court now goes to the German Court of Justice. That court’s coming up with a verdict on the case.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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