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Data protection authorities in northern Germany have decried the social networking website Facebook and threatened to slap heavy fines on any third-party website that uses a Facebook “like” button.
The privacy commissioner for the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, Thilo Weichert, announced on Friday, August 19, that he would go after private and public sites featuring Facebook’s “like” button, which allows web users to rate the websites they encounter.
Weichert argues that this popular function breaches privacy by making it possible for the social networking giant to guess user preferences and opinions by compiling a profile of all the sites marked on one computer.
Weichert’s office, which operates independently of Schleswig-Holstein’s state government, has long advised webmasters “informally that many Facebook offerings are illegal,” according to Weichert. “Unfortunately, up to now, this has prevented few providers from using the offerings,” he said.
The data protection agency could slam websites operating in Schleswig-Holstein with up to 50,000 euros ($72,000) if they continue to use the “like” button or manage fan pages on Facebook’s website after the end of September.
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