Social Networking sites had never been ruling classes'
favorite, but Germany has decided to go a bit further. The country has declared
Facebook's Like button illegal. Facebook had been under fire in Germany for
quite some time now. Earlier, the social networking site had drawn ire over its
facial recognition feature. The feature was used for automatically tagging photos.
The state considered the function to be the infringement of privacy rights.
Similarly, now even the like button is thought to be
breaking the privacy laws. A German official claimed that Like button is
capable of tracking a "person's movement across the web." The official also
claimed that such actions are in violation of data protection laws of the
European Union. According to a press release, "Whoever
visits facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be
tracked by the company for two years.”
Facebook has vehemently denied the allegation. It claimed that it
deletes all such traceable data after 90 days, which is a standard industrial
procedure. Despite such assurances from Facebook, the sites operated under the
aegis of state of Schleswig-Holstein will have to remove Like button before
September 30 or will have to face penalty of $72,000 or more. Facebook said
that it is working with the authorities for solving the issue.