Users take revenge on Facebook with data requests

IRASCIBLE SOCIAL NETWORKERS are creating hard work for Facebook, the giant in the social networking market, by demanding copies of the information that it keeps on them.

The firm has been inundated with requests for hard copies of their data and has been forced to tell users that it is unlikely to meet their requests for satisfaction within the allotted 40 days.

"Many users have informed us today that they received an e-mail in which Facebook is clearly saying that they can not answer access requests within the legal deadline of 40 days, because they got too many access requests to process," reads a statement on a Europe versus Facebook web site set up to celebrate the mischief.

The web site offers a template for use, as well as a reminder of why such actions are important.

"A company that constantly asks its costumers to be as transparent as possible should be equally transparent when it comes to the use of its costumers personal data," it says in its rallying call. "Transparency is not only a question of fairness but it is also a principle of European data protection law. It is time that the biggest social network worldwide sticks to these legal principles."

The requests might come at a bad time for Facebook. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner has started an investigation into the firm, and the US has begun looking at its use of super cookies. Meanwhile, the more user-focused Google+ is gaining in popularity and the much more user-focused Diaspora is nearing a full release. µ