Facebook "like" button in templates??

[Don Chambers]

There is this discussion in German: http://board.s9y.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17105

It still does not make sense to me ever though I ran it through a translator. I think the issue is somehow related to German privacy laws... but could someone give me an idea as to what is going on and why. I have thought about adding a 'like" button to a template. There are a few ways to do this.

You can get <iframe> code from facebook for this here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/ref ... gins/like/

AddThis also has code to do it: http://www.addthis.com/web-button-select.

[Timbalu]

I think the issue is somehow related to German privacy laws... but could someone give me an idea as to what is going on and why.

Well, Germans are a little more careful and concerned about privacy in the web than others. We know we can't stop it, but we try...

The privacy laws and defrayal of costs by cease-and-desist orders are just one side of the medal. There is more to be concerned about how to stop unwanted tracking and data mining, which is done by Facebook hugely and massive. And you know what they are doing with all that data.
http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/11/30/faceb ... cking-you/

I have thought about adding a 'like" button to a template. There are a few ways to do this.

Garvin added, after some discussion, something like a 'do not track non members' button via Facebooks JS script into the findmore plugin. We just had another disussion in http://board.s9y.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16628 about adding flattr and some others to this.

[onli]

Yeah. That surely doesn't make a lot of sense, even in german (though the discussion was quite good).

Well first some background: In germany, we have these folks called "Datenschützer", data protectors. They are quite resourceful and often fight for a good cause. They are, as far as i remember, embedded into government-organisations.

Now, there are of course also quite strong privacy laws protecting data of users. Which is in general a good thing. But the ultra-strict interpretation of these laws (never written for the internet) - and at least one of the Datenschützer went crazy - forbids you to send any personal data to any company. And it is not really defined what is personal data, is an ip, is a unique id generated by facebook linked to your profile? So, based on that, this crazy one thinks it is illegal to embed the facebook button into your website (cause this sends data to facebook), it is illegal to embed amazon ads (this sends data to amazon), illegal to use google analytics (you get it) - and of course it is illegal to save anything. Sueing normal people cause of this.

So the german discussion is about wether to respect this strict view or not, about a technical solution (not embedding the button itself, but load it on click on something different).

PS: I just saw Timbalu's answer, but as this is already finished, i'll post it anyway :)

[Timbalu]

So, based on that, this crazy one thinks it is illegal to embed the facebook button into your website (cause this sends data to facebook), it is illegal to embed amazon ads (this sends data to amazon), illegal to use google analytics (you get it) - and of course it is illegal to save anything. Sueing normal people cause of this.

Yes, thats true. But there is no high court decision if this single ones interpretation is really based to the laws. (*)

But all these mentioned services have in common, that the collected data is send into 'The Land of the Free', which does not really care what these big companies do with all that data. This is something to be concerned about, since they are acting global.
And there are some small differences. Google at least reacted onto the privacy discussion and added the anonymizer..., AFAIK.

The point is to be wide awake what is happening and take care about it! Thats all.

(*edit) In fact he just sued some people ( his personal wake up call, I think) who did not have an information in their general terms and conditions <GTC> to make it clear to any visitor that there is data mining going on by visiting the website only.