Austrian Law Student Faces Down Facebook
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BERLIN -- As Wall Street prepares for a record, multibillion-dollar initial stock sale from Facebook, the social networking site, a meeting with the potential to shape the economics of the deal was set to take place Monday in Vienna.
Richard Allan, a former member of Parliament in Britain who is the European director of policy for Facebook, and another executive from Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, will meet with Max Schrems, a 24-year-old college student.
Mr. Schrems, a law student at the University of Vienna and a user of Facebook since 2008, has led a vocal campaign in Europe against what he maintains are Facebook's illegal practices of collecting and marketing users' personal data, often without consent.
In less than a year, Mr. Schrems's one-person operation has morphed into a Web site, Europe Versus Facebook, and a grass-roots movement that has persuaded 40,000 people to contact Facebook in Ireland, where its European headquarters are located, to demand a summary of all the personal data the U.S. company is holding on them.
Mr. Schrems and his crusade have become a cause célèbre in parts of Europe, attracting the attention of lawmakers in Brussels as the Continent begins a lengthy debate over tough new proposed restrictions on personal data, which could affect Web businesses like Facebook.
Last month, the author of a proposed European data protection law, which would update a 1995 statute to reflect the realities of the digital age, cited Mr. Schrems's case as an example of why European lawmakers should adopt tightened controls over Web businesses.
The plan put forward by Viviane Reding, the European justice commissioner, would give E.U. residents the right to opt out more easily of standard data collection practices used by businesses like Facebook. It would also compel companies to expunge all personal data, permanently, at a consumer's request.
Both elements have the potential to hamper the data-harvesting engine that is at the heart of Facebook's advertising-driven business, and of its value.
Facebook said in a statement that its data practices followed European law and that the company had gone out of its way to meet Mr. Schrems's request for personal information. The company also noted that Facebook users could easily obtain a copy of their information on Facebook by using a function within their personal account settings.
First Published February 6, 2012 12:00 am
