German DPA takes on Facebook again
The DPA of Hamburg has done it again and picked up a new fight against mighty US giant Facebook. This time, the DPA was not amused about Facebook´s attempt to enforce its real name policy, and issued
The DPA of Hamburg has done it again and picked up a new fight against mighty US giant Facebook. This time, the DPA was not amused about Facebook´s attempt to enforce its real name policy, and issued an administrative order against Facebook Ireland Ltd.
The order is meant to force Facebook to accept aliased user names, to revoke the suspension of user accounts that had been registered under an alias, to stop Facebook from unilaterally changing alias user names to real user names, and to stop requesting copies of official ID documents. It is based on Sec. 13 (6) German Telemedia Act, which requires service providers like Facebook to offer access to their services anonymously or under an alias, and also a provision of the German Personal ID Act which arguably prohibits requesting copies of official ID documents.
Despite this regulation, Facebook´s terms of use oblige users to use their real name in Germany, too. Early this year, Facebook started to enforce this policy more actively and suspended user accounts that were registered under an alias. The company also requested users to submit copies of official ID documents. It also sent messages to users asking them to confirm that "friends" on the network used their real name. In a press statement, Mr Caspar, head of the Hamburg DPA said: "As already became apparent in numerous other complaints, this case shows in an exemplary way that the network [Facebook] attempts to enforce its so-called real name obligation with all its powers. In doing so, it does not show any respect for national law."
Whether Facebook is at all subject to German law has been heavily disputed. While the Higher Administrative Court of the German state Schleswig-Holstein ruled that Facebook Ireland Limited, as a service provider located in an EU member state, benefits from the country-of-origin principle laid down in Directive 95/46/EC, the Regional Court of Berlin came to the opposite conclusion: It held that Facebook Inc. rather than Facebook Ireland Ltd would be the data controller, as the actual decisions about the scope, extent and purpose of the processing of data would be made in the US. The court also dismissed the argument that Facebook Ireland acts as a data controller in a data controller-processor agreement with Facebook Inc., as it ruled that the corporate domination agreement between Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland prevails over the stipulations of the data controller-processor agreement. As Facebook has a sales and marketing subsidiary in Hamburg, the Hamburg DPA now believes to have tailwind due to the ECJ ruling in the Google Spain case to establish the applicability of German law: "This exit has been closed by the ECJ with its jurisdiction on the Google search engine. Facebook is commercially active in Germany through its establishment in Hamburg. Who operates on our playing field must play by our rules."
While previous activities of German DPAs against Facebook were aimed at legal issues that did not really agitate German users, such as the admissibility of the "like"-button, the enforcement of the real name policy upset German users in numbers, and a lot of users announced to turn their back on the network. The issue also saw a lot of press coverage in national media, mostly in strong criticism of Facebook.
The order is meant to force Facebook to accept aliased user names, to revoke the suspension of user accounts that had been registered under an alias, to stop Facebook from unilaterally changing alias user names to real user names, and to stop requesting copies of official ID documents. It is based on Sec. 13 (6) German Telemedia Act, which requires service providers like Facebook to offer access to their services anonymously or under an alias, and also a provision of the German Personal ID Act which arguably prohibits requesting copies of official ID documents.
Despite this regulation, Facebook´s terms of use oblige users to use their real name in Germany, too. Early this year, Facebook started to enforce this policy more actively and suspended user accounts that were registered under an alias. The company also requested users to submit copies of official ID documents. It also sent messages to users asking them to confirm that "friends" on the network used their real name. In a press statement, Mr Caspar, head of the Hamburg DPA said: "As already became apparent in numerous other complaints, this case shows in an exemplary way that the network [Facebook] attempts to enforce its so-called real name obligation with all its powers. In doing so, it does not show any respect for national law."
"This exit has been closed"
Whether Facebook is at all subject to German law has been heavily disputed. While the Higher Administrative Court of the German state Schleswig-Holstein ruled that Facebook Ireland Limited, as a service provider located in an EU member state, benefits from the country-of-origin principle laid down in Directive 95/46/EC, the Regional Court of Berlin came to the opposite conclusion: It held that Facebook Inc. rather than Facebook Ireland Ltd would be the data controller, as the actual decisions about the scope, extent and purpose of the processing of data would be made in the US. The court also dismissed the argument that Facebook Ireland acts as a data controller in a data controller-processor agreement with Facebook Inc., as it ruled that the corporate domination agreement between Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland prevails over the stipulations of the data controller-processor agreement. As Facebook has a sales and marketing subsidiary in Hamburg, the Hamburg DPA now believes to have tailwind due to the ECJ ruling in the Google Spain case to establish the applicability of German law: "This exit has been closed by the ECJ with its jurisdiction on the Google search engine. Facebook is commercially active in Germany through its establishment in Hamburg. Who operates on our playing field must play by our rules."
While previous activities of German DPAs against Facebook were aimed at legal issues that did not really agitate German users, such as the admissibility of the "like"-button, the enforcement of the real name policy upset German users in numbers, and a lot of users announced to turn their back on the network. The issue also saw a lot of press coverage in national media, mostly in strong criticism of Facebook.