Germans take aim at Facebook over privacy

If you thought the heat has been turned down on Facebook regarding privacy after all the trouble earlier this year, think again. BBC News is reporting that German officials are taking legal action against the social networking site.

Johannes Caspar, head of Hamburg’s Data Protection Authority, is concerned that the site is storing the data of third-parties who have not signed-up to Facebook, but whose details have been added to the site by friends, for marketing purposes.

And it’s not the first time that Germany has raised its concerns with Facebook. Earlier this year consumer protection groups in the country urged Facebook to do a U-turn on privacy, and adopt a policy of having to…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.