San Francisco — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he agrees "in spirit" with a strict new European Union law on data privacy, but stops short of committing to it as the standard for the social network across the world.
As Facebook reels from a scandal over the mishandling of personal information belonging to millions of users, the company is facing demands to improve privacy and learn lessons from the landmark EU law scheduled to take effect next month.
Zuckerberg told Reuters in a phone interview on Tuesday that Facebook was working on a version of the law that would work globally, bringing some European privacy guarantees worldwide.
However, the 33-year-old billionaire demurred when asked what parts of the law he would not extend worldwide.
"We’re still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing," Zuckerberg said.
He did not elaborate.
His comments signal that US Facebook users, many of them still angry over the company’s admission that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica got hold of Facebook data on 50-million members, could find themselves in a worse position than Europeans.
The European law, called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is the biggest overhaul of online privacy since the birth of the internet, giving Europeans the right to know what data is stored on them and the right to have it deleted.
Apple and some other tech firms have said they plan to give people in the US and elsewhere the same protections and rights that Europeans will gain.
Shares of Facebook closed 0.5% higher on Tuesday at $156.11. They have fallen more than 15% since March 16, when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.
Push for privacy
Privacy advocacy groups have been urging Facebook and its Silicon Valley competitors such as Alphabet’s Google to apply EU data laws worldwide, largely without success.
"We want Facebook and Google and all the other companies to immediately adopt in the US and worldwide any new protections that they implement in Europe," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, in Washington.
Zuckerberg said many of the tools that were part of the EU law — such as the ability of users to delete all their data — were already available for people on Facebook.
"We think that this is a good opportunity to take that moment across the rest of the world," he said. "The vast majority of what is required here are things that we’ve already had for years across the world for everyone."
Google and Facebook are the global leaders in internet advertising revenue. Both based in California, they possess enormous amounts of data on billions of people.
Google has declined to comment on its plans.
When the GDPR law takes effect on May 25, people in EU countries will gain the right to transfer their data to other social networks, for example.
Facebook and its competitors will also need to be much more specific about how they plan to use people’s data, and they will need to get explicit consent.
GDPR is likely to cut into profits at Facebook because it could reduce the value of ads if the company cannot use personal information as freely — and because of the added expense of hiring lawyers to ensure compliance with the new law.
Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said data was central to Facebook’s advertising business, and it had not yet sketched out a satisfying plan for how it planned to comply.
"I haven’t heard any solutions from Facebook to get ahead of the problem yet," Wieser said.
Failure to comply with the law carries a maximum penalty of up to 4% of annual revenue.
It should not be difficult for companies to extend EU practices and policies elsewhere because they already had systems in place, said Nicole Ozer, director of technology and civil liberties at the American Civil Liberties Union of California.
Companies’ promises were less reassuring than laws, she said. "If user privacy is going to be properly protected, the law has to require it."
Reuters
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