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Facebook denies it will pull service in Europe over data transfer ban
Facebook’s head of global policy has denied the tech giant could close its service to Europeans if local regulators order it to suspend data transfers to the US following a landmark Court of Justice ruling in July that has cemented the schism between US surveillance laws and EU privacy rights.
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Quite likely to happen: They will subcontract a company to manage data to ensure there are no transfers. It will be a shell company with several layers of other shells, that at the root will be a 3-letter agency providing a big sack of money that ultimately ends up in Zuck's bank account.
Since it's perfectly legal from the US side, net change is Zuck gets more money. If the EU ever digs down far enough to declare shenanigans and issues huge fines, the subcontractor declares bankruptcy, and a new subcontractor lathers, rinses, and repeats. Zuck promises to keep a closer eye on things, and gets a new sack of money. If they issue the fine to Facey book instead, it'll be tied up in court and appeals for a decade.
Yes, I am a curmudgeon.
Let them pull it! Would be great for (European) society! :-)
100% agree!! In actuality, FaceBook would never do it, since they'd pretty much be guaranteed of a start of a death spiral. So many ppl use it to catch up w friends and family overseas, that cutting the EU-to-other link is going to cause a lot of non-EU ppl to quit too.
An escalation wouldn't hurt the internet. :-)
Edit: besides the opening up of the social media market (which would be economically very good), just for shits and giggles, of course. ;-)