German State Schleswig-Holstein Bans Facebook Like Button

The government of Schleswig-Holstein, a state in Germany, has decided to prevent users from “Liking” Facebook Pages. The Schleswig-Holstein government asked institutions in the state to close down their Facebook Pages and remove the Like button from their websites otherwise they will be fined.

Thilo Weichert, the data-protection commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein, said that he did analysis from his office that shows that Facebook builds the profile of users and non-users from data collected by the Like button. If the analysis is true, then it would violate German and European data protection laws.

The data-protection organization in Germany urged people “to keep their fingers from clicking on social plugins” such as the Like button to avoid from being profiled. Facebook insists that the only information collected by a Like button is an IP address.

[Mashable]

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