Facebook isn’t going to extend European privacy protections globally

Those protections are part of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law that comes into force in May. The GDPR is Europe’s most significant change to online privacy in over two decades. It states that Europeans have the right to know what data companies have stored about them and gives users the right to have that data deleted for good. All tech companies that operate in Europe must adhere to the GDPR, and many, like Apple, will be rolling out GDPR protections to all of their users, whether they live in Europe or not.

But not Facebook. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Reuters that though he agreed with the GDPR “in spirit” his company won’t be making all of its rules the norm for users globally. “We’re still nailing down details on this, but it should directionally be, in spirit, the whole thing,” Zuckerberg said about bringing the benefits of the GDPR to users worldwide. He would not comment on which parts of the law wouldn’t be enacted worldwide. His position probably comes as little surprise to most. Even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal has engulfed the company and tarnished its reputation, Zuck knows that Facebook’s business model relies on harvesting data about its users, and any law that makes access to that data stricter is bad for Facebook.