from what I can tell, everyone thinks people are just wheelbarrowing bundles of cash in corrupt foreign countries while their own country has a convoluted legal process that is therefore different and okay.
while in reality a lot of other countries have some form of codified legal process that makes "money to one guy for a favorable regulatory environment" possible too.
Nope, that is incorrect. This was a business decision to buy as much time as possible, and it got them 5 years worth of EMEA revenue without needing consent.
Like, everybody knew that this was illegal, but court cases take a long time.
Fundamentally, the Irish government and DPC had no way to stop this from happening.
The really interesting question is what happens to Google here, as they have traditionally taken the same approach.
The Irish DPC had all the ability to declare this as unacceptable (and start imposing penalties if it's not changed) much, much earlier, without waiting for German DPC to proceed through courts.
Then Facebook/Meta would have challenged the rulings and pushed it through the courts. Probably would have been a bit faster, but still a long process.
This does feel like a general problem with regulation of tech in particular, though. It’s not just GDPR stuff, either. For instance, US and EU regulators seem to be _finally_ lurching into action on crypto, which will presumably be a great comfort to the vast cohort of people who were ripped off for billions over the last few years (the “Web 3 is going great” loss tracker is currently at about 12.5bn, though it’s not a great metric as it doesn’t generally encompass pump and dumps, only very clear ripoffs and exploits).
There’s probably no easy answer here; it _does_ take time to do stuff properly.
I don't think this is incorrect? The DPA is incompetent or corrupt because it allowed such a scheme to be profitable.
> This was a business decision to buy as much time as possible
A competent and non-corrupt DPA would've enforced a fine greater than the potential/estimated revenue explicitly to discourage gambles like this and seize any revenue acquired unlawfully.
Huh? Facebook made the business decision, they got sued and the court case has finally concluded that this was (as basically everone already knew) not compliant.
The maximum fine is capped at 5% of global revenue, so this was always gonna end up being profitable for Facebook, unfortunately.
I personally agree that the Irish DPA should be doing a lot better, but they're definitely not corrupt.
Mate, every regulator in Ireland is corrupt. Every single one.
GSOC - corrupt. Ask Maurice McCabe.
Túsla - corrupt. Ask McCabe, again.
Central Bank - corrupt. Ask Jonathan Sugarman.
Coillte - corrupt. Look at all the sitka spruce drenched in Round-Up that they plant.
The CRU - corrupt. Have never handed down a fine over three figures, afaict. They are literally paid by the utility companies. Ask anyone you know who has ever filed a complaint against them. My lawyer wouldn't go near them when his leccy company screwed him over - no point, he said.
The construction industry is a mafia; look into CRH sometime.
Look at what's happening to RTE now that they were caught giving tens of millions away under the table - one or two people will be scapegoated, lose their job, and escape jailtime.
FF and FG have their fingers in every pie. They have the country rotted out from the core. We're in debt over 40,000 euro per person.
So why on Earth would you assume the DPC, who has been letting FB run roughshod over half the planet's data for years, are any better at all?
Ok so I had to get out my laptop here, as there's a bunch of details.
> GSOC - corrupt. Ask Maurice McCabe.
I'm pretty sure you mean the Gardai Siochana, rather than a (relatively recent) regulator of theres. The Guards actually bugged their offices, which is both super corrupt and not talked about enough.
They believed the Guards, who I definitely agree are in fact, corrupt. Fun fact, my cousin has been fighting said corruption for like twenty years, with the result that he'll almost certainly never be promoted.
> Central Bank - corrupt. Ask Jonathan Sugarman.
I 100% agree that the CB were diabolically bad during the boom, but I'm not sure that they were corrupt. They basically took the same approach as the UK, which is both sadly normal and stupid, but I don't see evidence of corruption here, can you be more specific?
> The CRU - corrupt. Have never handed down a fine over three figures, afaict. They are literally paid by the utility companies. Ask anyone you know who has ever filed a complaint against them. My lawyer wouldn't go near them when his leccy company screwed him over - no point, he said.
I have no evidence either for or against this proposition, so I will say no more.
> Coillte - corrupt. Look at all the sitka spruce drenched in Round-Up that they plant.
I too hate sitka spruce everywhere, but not sure how this links to corruption, can you clarify?
> The construction industry is a mafia; look into CRH sometime.
The construction industry is indeed a mafia (I worked in it for a number of years), but I'm not sure how that relates to regulators in ireland being corrupt?
> Look at what's happening to RTE now that they were caught giving tens of millions away under the table - one or two people will be scapegoated, lose their job, and escape jailtime.
10's of millions? 1.25 million surely? Don't get me wrong, I agree it was incredibly tone deaf and stupid (seriously, if Turbridy/any of the rest of them think they can get more money elsewhere then they should do that). That one is particularly bad, given that the CFO didn't know anything about an account, but RTE are not a regulator, so it doesn't have much to do with your current point.
> FF and FG have their fingers in every pie. They have the country rotted out from the core.
They've been in government together or separately since the foundation of the State, at what point do the people (i.e. us) who voted for them become responsible (note to non-Irish readers: we have a PR system and lots of other parties, we just keep voting for the incompetents).
The two of them have also presided over an economic miracle in that I grew up in a very poor country and we're now much, much richer. You could argue that that's not down to them, but then why are you blaming them for the bad parts?
> So why on Earth would you assume the DPC, who has been letting FB run roughshod over half the planet's data for years, are any better at all?
Because nobody in ireland that is politically powerful profits from a weak DPC. Generally, our corruption is related to either farmers, lawyers or builders making out like bandits (and the Guards, who are just terrible and have been for far too long).
Nobody in the upper echelons of Irish society gives a toss about data protection or tech in general.
It's just garden variety lack of resources and incompetence, I'm afraid. The DPC has been begging for more money and resources for a long time, which does not seem like the actions of a corrupt regulator. There's essentially no revolving door (I looked to see if the DPC would hire me as an experienced data scientist with a background in policy and they just want lawyers unfortunately).
> who has been letting FB run roughshod over half the planet's data for years
Look, again I'm not saying the DPC have done an amazing job here, but fundamentally the DPC keep making judgements and FB keep challenging them in court. While I may not like the amount of time this takes, I do like living in a system where regulators don't ignore the courts and hand down unchallengable judgements (and I reckon you do too, in general if not in this specific case).
Also, the EU has about 450mn people, so it's approximately 12% of the planet at most that's been affected by this (though a much larger proportion of the monetisable population).
Re GSOC: Being as quiet and toothless as they have been towards the Gardai strongly implies corruption. What have they done regarding the Templemore scandal, or the Penalty Points scandal, or the breath test scandal, the dodgy evictions with balaclaved anonymous unlicensed Northern thugs, or how Shell protesters were treated, or even the surveillance of their own office which you yourself brought up? What use are they at all? Every week on the ireland subreddit there's a huge thread, where people complain about how utterly useless the GS are - ignoring serious crimes, ignoring theft when there's video proof. The buck for that stops at GSOC. GSOC aren't just not doing anything about all this, they're not even opening their mouths!
Re the CB: What did the CB do after 2008? Next to nothing. What did they do after Sugarman was proven right - congratulate him? Apologize? Give him a job? Nope, nope nope - they did nothing. Sugarman has been blacklisted all over the globe. Have you seen your bank fees recently? Ever noticed how they always rise across every Irish bank at the same time, or how the CB is fine with that?
Re Túsla - You seem unaware of that bs "copy and paste error" story, which we were expected to swallow (even after the GS tried to frame McCabe with Fr. Molloy's hard drives). That story went right up to multiple Garda Commissioners and the Minister for Justice, who was incredibly found not guilty in a Tribunal then sent to the EU (!).
Re the CRU - You can't get evidence, because they're unaccountable. By EU law, they're mandated to publish figures and accounts of the fines they hand out - but they don't. I asked them directly for those figures on multiple occasions, and was completely ignored.
Re Coillte - I for one find the forest and woodlands regulatory destroying our land and soil, selling it off for cheap wood, corrupt; as do many groups who try to protect our biodiversity. If you think there aren't brown envelopes involved, and it's just incompetence, I've a lovely wooden bridge to sell you.
Re CRH - you don't see how a massive industry acting like a mafia doesn't point to corrupt regulation? Dunno what to tell you on that one so.
Re RTE - yes, it's tens of millions. It wasn't just Tubridy you know. They were giving quiet kickbacks of at least 50 million euro to ad agencies as well. And they've a long, long history of ignoring corruption in Ireland, unless there was someone left wing involved. For example, there's been eight attempts by PrimeTime to do a story on CRH - each time, a higher up has scuppered it last minute.
Re blaming FF and FG's victims - us - When the judiciary, the gardai, and the media are all bought and all corrupt, I myself find it hard to put too much blame on the people who have been robbed, lied to, gaslit, pressured, and put upon for decades; just trying to scrabble enough together to own their house and pay their bills, which has gotten so much harder in the past couple decades.
Re the DPC - You think no one in power benefits from a weak DPC? You might want to see how close of a link there is between big Tech and FFG leadership. The history of quiet unlogged meetings, the shared, unadvertised conferences, the statements of support, etc. You think any politician wants FB's algorithm going against them?
> The EU has about 450mn people, so it's approximately 12% of the planet at most that's been affected by this
I may be wrong about this, but I'd imagine it's not only EU people who have their data moving through FB's Irish centers. The legal complexities and implications are over my head on that one, but can we at least agree that ~10% of the world is still a lot of people?
> Re GSOC: Being as quiet and toothless as they have been towards the Gardai strongly implies corruption. What have they done regarding the Templemore scandal, or the Penalty Points scandal, or the breath test scandal, the dodgy evictions with balaclaved anonymous unlicensed Northern thugs, or how Shell protesters were treated, or even the surveillance of their own office which you yourself brought up? What use are they at all? Every week on the ireland subreddit there's a huge thread, where people complain about how utterly useless the GS are - ignoring serious crimes, ignoring theft when there's video proof. The buck for that stops at GSOC. GSOC aren't just not doing anything about all this, they're not even opening their mouths!
Again, if there's a hub for corruption in Ireland, it's centered on the Gardai, I'm not going to argue there. But the blame should be placed on the police force themselves, and the Department of Justice (don't get me started) rather than their relatively (some would say deliberately) toothless regulator.
> Re the CB: What did the CB do after 2008? Next to nothing. What did they do after Sugarman was proven right - congratulate him? Apologize? Give him a job? Nope, nope nope - they did nothing. Sugarman has been blacklisted all over the globe. Have you seen your bank fees recently? Ever noticed how they always rise across every Irish bank at the same time, or how the CB is fine with that?
Erm, lots of stuff? I mean, one of the biggest reasons that people can't afford to buy houses now is the debt to income ratios the CB introduced and held out for over a decade's worth of pressure from the great and the good of Irish society.
> Re Coillte - I for one find the forest and woodlands regulatory destroying our land and soil, selling it off for cheap wood, corrupt; as do many groups who try to protect our biodiversity. If you think there aren't brown envelopes involved, and it's just incompetence, I've a lovely wooden bridge to sell you.
It's just money. Sitka spruce is profitable and grows really quickly in the Irish climate so it gets planted everywhere. I believe that this should stop happening as much over time, because of commitments in the Programme for Government, but we'll see I suppose.
> Re CRH - you don't see how a massive industry acting like a mafia doesn't point to corrupt regulation? Dunno what to tell you on that one so.
Construction is horribly corrupt literally everywhere. Can you provide some sources for the CRH stuff? I probably knew about this at one point, but can't recall right now.
> Re RTE - yes, it's tens of millions. It wasn't just Tubridy you know. They were giving quiet kickbacks of at least 50 million euro to ad agencies as well. And they've a long, long history of ignoring corruption in Ireland, unless there was someone left wing involved. For example, there's been eight attempts by PrimeTime to do a story on CRH - each time, a higher up has scuppered it last minute.
Again, have you ever worked in the advertising industry? This sort of weird accounting is basically everywhere. I hesitate to call it corruption, but it's super problematic. That being said, do you have a source for this claim as I haven't heard it before?
> Re blaming FF and FG's victims - us - When the judiciary, the gardai, and the media are all bought and all corrupt, I myself find it hard to put too much blame on the people who have been robbed, lied to, gaslit, pressured, and put upon for decades; just trying to scrabble enough together to own their house and pay their bills, which has gotten so much harder in the past couple decades.
Hey look, I've never voted for either of them. And I was dirt poor during the boom and have been paying for the consequences ever since.
But yeah, the Irish people demand low level fixing from their public representatives. Do you remember Mervyn Taylor? He removed divorce, legalised being gay (in the 90s!) and fixed a whole bunch of important laws. His reward? Losing his seat, because he didn't do enough constituency clinics.
Meanwhile, Michael Lowry tops the poll every. freaking. election. (Not to mention the Healy Rae dynasty).
> Re the DPC - You think no one in power benefits from a weak DPC? You might want to see how close of a link there is between big Tech and FFG leadership. The history of quiet unlogged meetings, the shared, unadvertised conferences, the statements of support, etc. You think any politician wants FB's algorithm going against them?
I worked at Facebook for five years, and knew lots of the policy people (who would deal with politicians). Any close relationship existed only in the heads of gullible politicians.
> And they've a long, long history of ignoring corruption in Ireland, unless there was someone left wing involved.
Again, this is not true. RTE broke both the Ansbacher scandal (where all the rich had offshore accounts) and lots and lots of the planning corruption stories that became all the 90s/00s tribunals.
>I may be wrong about this, but I'd imagine it's not only EU people who have their data moving through FB's Irish centers. The legal complexities and implications are over my head on that one, but can we at least agree that ~10% of the world is still a lot of people?
The only people covered by the GDPR are EU citizens, AFAIK. Yes, the ToCs for all non-US users are (or were) managed through FB Ireland, but I'm pretty sure that's changed since GDPR.
> Again, this is not true. RTE broke both the Ansbacher scandal (where all the rich had offshore accounts) and lots and lots of the planning corruption stories that became all the 90s/00s tribunals.
What?? RTE didn't break that - the Revenue did. RTE had to cover it, because it would have been obvious if they didn't. (And to this day, not one person has been prosecuted over it). All those tribunals came to nothing, and RTE have defended DOB in particular right to the hilt. Ever see the terror on Tubs' face when Denis' name comes up?
They could hardly be more obviously corrupt, and the BAI don't ever say a thing about it.
> Any close relationship existed only in the heads of gullible politicians.
I don't think they'd tell their employees about their deals with the "gullible" politicians who are canny enough to stay in power for the last hundred years.
> This sort of weird accounting is basically everywhere. I hesitate to call it corruption, but it's super problematic.
Bro. When corrupt behaviour is so normalised that you don't even see it as corruption, just 'problematic', that's a sign that your corruption calibrators need a good clean. And they really, really do. That's what I'm trying to tell you, but you seem to disagree even when you agree.
> do you have a source for this claim as I haven't heard it before?
> Bro. When corrupt behaviour is so normalised that you don't even see it as corruption, just 'problematic', that's a sign that your corruption calibrators need a good clean. And they really, really do. That's what I'm trying to tell you, but you seem to disagree even when you agree.
This was entirely needless.
I could have said that you sound like a raving paranoid, and that would have been equally needless. But I didn't (well, almost) because I'm trying to assume good intent.
Lets be 100% clear, you don't know me, you have never (probably) met me and yet you are making assumptions on my integrity that are completely beyond the bloody pale.
I'm going to bow out now, as this conversation is unlikely to improve my (or your, presumably) mood.
The article is about proposed secrecy regarding the Irish Data Protection Commission, "Section 26A would make most reporting about procedures or decisions by the DPC a crime."
It doesn't say that DPC ruled adding data processing purposes to contracts after the fact to be legal.
Data protection authorities in any country that matters are kept underfunded or on an otherwise short leash (Netherlands is no different, we might as well not have one at all for all the positive things it does ... not ... do). Not sure the German one is as bad, but then which big business decided to headquarter in DE? Ireland and the Netherlands have better tax schemes apparently. I'm not surprised they're doing as little as possible in Ireland, but I would be surprised if they actually said it's fine to make one-sided contract amendments
I find that particular one even more sensational and less objective.
> the DPC simply ignored the unlawful revenue made by Meta and claimed that "the Commission is unable to ascertain an estimation of the matters" and that it is therefore "unable to take these matters into account". This is despite having the power to demand such information from Meta under Article 58(1) GDPR.
> Max [says] "We all know about Meta's enormous revenue. It's astonishing that this was not taken into account by the DPC.
Apples and oranges. DPC says they don't know how much more money they made by doing this illegal thing. Max says "but look at how filthy rich they are! Take it all!!" 10/10 logic
The latter logic is what gets these things overturned
(I'm no fan of Facebook's and would be perfectly happy to see their services banned from the EU market altogether until they comply with article 8 of our human rights convention, which GDPR helps protect, but I do try to keep an objective perspective)
> DPC says they don't know how much more money they made by doing this illegal thing
I would agree that the waters might be murky in a business spanning multiple verticals or offering multiple products.
But in case of Facebook, the only business they have is targeted advertising, so it's safe to assume that any EU-sourced revenue is directly as a result of operating unlawfully and breaching the GDPR?
