Europe’s top court ruled on Monday that online retailers must warn web users that they send personal data to Facebook through the “like” button. According to the European Court of Justice ruling, a site that embeds the Facebook “like” icon and link on its pages also sends user data to the US web giant.
“It seems that that transmission occurs without that visitor being aware of it and regardless of whether or not he or she is a member of the social network Facebook or has clicked on the ‘Like’ button,” it said. Under EU data protection law, therefore, a European retailer and the US platform are jointly responsible for gathering the data and sending it to Facebook’s Irish subsidiary.
Users should therefore be warned and asked to consent to their data being gathered, although the retailer is not responsible for what Facebook does with it later.
