Irish Supremes make shock decision to hear Facebook's appeal in Schrems II The Irish Supreme Court has made the unprecedented decision to hear Facebook’s appeal in its long-running legal battle with privacy activist Max Schrems – and to do so with urgency. The unanimous decision from the five judges considering the case will be a surprise to observers, as it appears to go against existing case law …
"Inside it, all the judge Internet habits"
Surely not? I thought that kind of blackmailworthy dirt collection was reserved (in and around Westminster anyway) for the 'intelligence' services and/or the Party Whips, to make sure that wayward MPs could be trusted to vote as required by the real Powers That Be if the need were to arise.
What's the expression? "You might possibly think so, I couldn't possibly comment".
See also: Defence of the Realm, A Very British Coup, etc.
Honesty in politics and corporate business?
Maybe once - when they only had the capabilities to collect those data.
But today? How much Facebook, Google & C. know about people? Up to the point that the intelligence services want those data as well.
And not only that - by promoting or demoting contents as they please, they can change your "public image". And with even less oversight than government services.
I was joking, but this kind of operation is not beyond their capabilities.
The first guess would be Facebook in the shady back-alley with the brown envelope of €500 notes, but I think that's too easy.
Ireland has waaaaay too much dependence on the money from the IT giants so I suspect that the court may have been lent on by the Irish government.
"... so I suspect that the court may have been lent on by the Irish government"
Very doubtful, and it would want to be a particularly dumb politician that would try it (not that those are in short supply here). Constitutionally the judiciary is a completely separate arm of the state from Dail Eireann (the parliament). So much so that the government couldn't even reduce judges pay when everybody else got it in the neck when we were forced to cover the fsck ups of private business 10 a years ago. For any minister or civil servant to be seen to attempt to influence the supreme court would unleash the mother of all conditional crises.
Ireland is on notice that getting US firms to HQ there for sweetheart tax deals on EU income isn't sustainable in the future. So instead they'll have to give them sweetheart legal deals if they want to be sure of keeping them.
Ireland is deeply complicit is Facebook's Data Crimes...
It must be great to have friends in powerful places tho...
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/ireland-has-traded-jobs-for-managing-the-world-s-online-data-1.3436878
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/privacy-rights-it-s-natural-facebook-would-choose-ireland-1.3400531
https://qz.com/162791/how-a-bureaucrat-in-a-struggling-country-at-the-edge-of-europe-found-himself-safeguarding-the-worlds-data/
https://qz.com/993995/how-facebooks-fb-sheryl-sandberg-personally-lobbied-irish-prime-minister-enda-kenny-as-shown-by-2014-emails-published-in-the-irish-independent/
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