Belgium’s privacy watchdog the Commission for the Protection of Privacy (CPP) announced Monday that it will be escalating a dispute against Facebook brought on by increasing privacy concerns. The grievances include claims that Facebook is tracking its users’ activity across the Web to sell targeted advertisements. According to the CPP, Facebook is keeping an eye on people who don’t even have an account on the social media site. The CPP finally took legal action after its investigation last month didn’t reveal enough information.
A joint effort to address privacy concerns with Facebook proved futile, even with Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain all working together. “We did not get satisfactory answers so this was the next step,” said a spokeswoman for the CPP. Its concerns more specifically outlined that Facebook is using its “like” buttons all over the Web to collect information it can then use in targeted advertising. The commission has requested that the court immediately ban Facebook from monitoring non-user activities through the use of cookies and any other methods.
Facebook has not exactly been enthusiastic in its response. Facebook said that the CPP had agreed to a meeting on Friday, and that it found the decision to take the U.S company to court on Thursday “theatrical.” The social media giant was also quick to remind the CPP that it is only bound by Irish law. “We remain happy to work with them in an effort to resolve their concerns, through a dialogue with us at Facebook Ireland and with our regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner,” Facebook stated.
The social network has defended itself by insisting, somewhat accurately, that using cookies to collect user data and create targeted advertising, is an industry standard. While that may well be the case, European agencies in the recent past have been working overtime to protect the citizens of European Union countries from having their privacy unduly violated. Facebook is not the only U.S firm that is under scrutiny.
The hearing is set for Thursday June 18 in Brussels. We’ll keep you updated on its progress.
Discord is trying to push more visibility on the internet for some of its biggest communities, and there's a good chance your messages could end up in a Google Search. The platform is preparing to make conversations from certain public servers searchable on the web, so there's a privacy setting you might want to check before the rollout begins.
According to Discord's official announcement, the changes will roll out in two stages. Starting November 16, qualifying servers will have public web pages featuring automated summaries of conversations. By mid-December, individual messages from eligible public channels could also appear word-for-word in Google and other search engines.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?