In what could prove to be a landmark decision, earlier this month Germany's highest court ruled that Facebook's friend finder feature is unlawful because it violates advertising harassment laws, as the Guardian reported:
The Facebook feature invites users to grant it permission to vacuum up the email addresses of friends or contacts in the user’s address book, which in turn allows the social network to send an invitation to non-Facebook users to join the service.
The court concluded this was a deceptive marketing practice, confirming decisions by two lower courts in Berlin in 2012 and 2014, which had found that Facebook had violated German laws on data protection and unfair trade practices.
The federal court also said Facebook had not adequately informed members about how it was using their contacts’ data.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Facebook in Germany said it was waiting to receive the formal decision and would study the findings “to assess any impact on our services."
Is A 'Big' Impact In the Cards?
Facebook uses big data algorithms to comb through all those address books and figure out who knows who, with the goal being speed and scale for its advertising engine. "They want to know about Alice and Frank and Ted and Bob without having to ask them questions, because questions are friction," says Constellation VP and principal analyst Steve Wilson.
There could be a serious impact indeed, since EU data privacy authorities often follow Germany's lead, Wilson says. "It's very likely other European states are going to look at this finding and say, this is unlawful here as well."
Overall, the German ruling over Facebook friend finder sets a precedent that could have deep implications for the indirect collection of business-related data by all types of enterprises, Wilson says. "This is going to hit big data right in the face," he says.
Wilson is the author of a major Constellation Research report calling for a new compact between companies and users over big data and data privacy [Read an excerpt here].
"There's no doubt big data can deliver a lot of good to society," he says. "But a lot of this is about opacity. People deserve to know what's going on. If I can figure stuff out about people indirectly instead of having to get them to fill out a questionnaire, and enterprise should stop and think what if I had to get a questionnaire? What are my obligations then?"
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