German regulator orders Facebook to allow pseudonyms

Well, after lodging the complaint, the Hamburg data protection authority ruled that Facebook couldn’t unilaterally change users’ usernames to their real names nor demand to see an official ID-deeming both violations of privacy-thus, ordering the tech conglomerate to allow pseudonyms.

The latest: Germany’s data regulator said the social networking service cannot block people using fake names, nor can it simply switch a person’s account to their real names, Bloomberg reported.

This Facebook might not minimize the risk of its end users by using false stuff companies, a German confidentiality overseer said on Tuesday, inside the most up-to-date level of privacy hindrance to use on the You can include.S. firm in Europe. Authorities from Germany, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and France are now all working together to investigate Facebook’s privacy policies.

Forcing users to stick to their real names violated their privacy rights, it said.

The decision stemmed from the case of a woman who had used a fake name on her private Facebook account to prevent people from contacting her on business matters.

Oddly, Reuters reports that since Facebook’s European offices are in Ireland, the company argues Irish law should govern its service.

Facebook comes in for a lot of criticism, but one things that managed to rub a lot of people up the wrong way is its real names policy.

However Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection, rejected the argument that Facebook should only be subject to Irish data protection laws. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. Chime in here, and we’ll share the results.