Facebook to appeal EU court ruling over tracking non-Facebook users

Facebook said yesterday that it would appeal a court ruling, which stopped if from tracking the online activities of non-Facebook users in Belgium who visited Facebook pages under threat of a €250,000-fine per day.

The social network was taken to court by the data protection regulator of Belgium, accusing it of trampling on EU privacy law by tracking people without a Facebook account without their consent.

Facebook's stake in the matter is its 'datr' cookie, which the social network places in people's browsers when they visit a Facebook.com site or click a Facebook 'Like' button on other websites. The cookie allows the social network to track the online activities of that browser.

"We've used the 'datr' cookie for more than five years to keep Facebook secure for 1.5 billion people around the world," a spokeswoman said.

"We will appeal this decision and are working to minimise any disruption to people's access to Facebook in Belgium."

According to Margot Neyskens, spokeswoman for Bart Tommelein, Belgian secretary of state for the protection of privacy, the Brussels court ordered Facebook to cease tracking non-Facebook users in Belgium within 48 hours or pay a daily fine of € 250,000 to the Belgian privacy regulator.

The decision of the Belgian court comes as the latest legal setback for the social network in Europe.

Last month the EU's top court ruled, on the basis of a complaint against Facebook, that the EU-US "Safe Harbour" deal under which personal information of Europeans could be transferred to the US was "invalid" as it did not properly protect the data from spy agencies.

In its decision yesterday, the Belgian court ruled that Facebook used a special "cookie" that lodged on an internet user's device when they visited a Facebook page, for example belonging to a friend, a shop or a political party even if they were not signed up to the network.

The cookie then stayed on users' device for up to two years and allowed Facebook to consult it whenever the user visited Facebook pages again, or any page which they liked or recommend via a Facebook link.

"The judge ruled that this is personal data, which Facebook can only use if the Internet user expressly gives their consent, as Belgian privacy law dictates," the court said in its statement.