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First success in Germany – go on fighting and petitioning in other Countries: Press Release of the Federal German Commissioner for Data Protection
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News media all over Germany and Austria are reporting on this issue now. Google News already lists 44 articles, most major German publications are running articles: Die Welt, Focus, n-tv, taz, Zeit, ...
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"Seit einer Weile ist CS eine B-Corporation und demnach profitorientiert."
C corporation is what it is, in the state of Delaware.
"B corporation" is a third party certification provided for a fee, and one that doesn't really mean much in fact. It's mainly a way to create confusion with "Benefit corporation", which is an actual legal entity in several US states (including California).
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation#Third-party_certification
is there a way to make a request to know what is the data C$ is holding ?
ie if we had pics and "removed"/deleted them... do they still have them somewhere ?
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"if we had pics and "removed"/deleted them... do they still have them somewhere ?"
Images uploaded to your profile are stored on amazon servers at
http://s3.amazonaws.com/images.couchsurfing.us
Your copy of the profile photo which I created for the users concerned about the terms of use is located at
http://s3.amazonaws.com/images.couchsurfing.us/L0193P/16664634_l_24e845b1ccb252a3ac59765fefc9bd45.jpg
while the original which I uploaded is at
http://s3.amazonaws.com/images.couchsurfing.us/223O5JK/16415374_l_be2632176223e3adadaaf50a03110bdd.jpg
There are dozens of copies of this image on their servers now and that is one image to which I don't mind giving them any perpetual rights they want ;-)
If you choose "delete photo" all you delete is the link to the image on the server. Whoever has the link can still acces it. The "Delete photo" button is misleading and legally very questionable. CS also has not published how long they keep any backups of since modified and deleted profiles.
is there a way to make a request to know what is the data C$ is holding ?
Several people have made such a request. For the moment, all reported answers have been negative or non-responsive. One should assume that it is EVERYTHING you have ever sent to CS. We know very clearly that most data is not erased when users delete it.
ie if we had pics and "removed"/deleted them... do they still have them somewhere ?
CS has stated fairly clearly that they will not be erasing any data (which one would assume includes photos), even that which users have "deleted". They say this is in case of legal proceedings or for "safety" reasons.
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Don't be fooled by propaganda and appearances. To me it seems nobody has been winning but everyone losing since CS became a business. I have learned to judge CS by its actions, not its words, which tend to be very different things.
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in tghe premble say: "In the event of any conflict between these Terms and any other policy or guideline of our Services, these Terms will govern"
so what she is sayiong is not pertinent.
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another troll around ...
It does not work because the people do not use it, since they are attracted by the "big thing"CS, or do not work in the tem that CS do not works, with server outages, disappeared messages and so on ?
since is not the second case (in two year i observed only once such problems, and never with lost messaged, so absolutely acceptable) i think that is the first case to be the one.
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"otherwise we'd have a network without a controller or an owner... just made by the community for the community
"so, to resume: we need someone organizing something for others, where everybody can control and so nobody alone.. that's the first step... moving in the hands of another owner our data what is gonna change? "
That first step has been made by BW.
Now we just need sincere community leaders such as yourself to bring their membership to BW - at least those who are really interested in community, integrity and transparency.
Three months ago I was also skeptical about BW. Now that I have seen the BW forums where all the members and leadership of BW are concerned about making BW as democratic and community-led as possible, and after studying the BW bylaws (the CS bylaws have always been secret), I see that all that is needed is more people.
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IF THEY HAVE TRIED TO UNDERSTAND USERS THEY HAVE BEEN HIDING IT REALLY WELL :-)
SORRY FOR THE CAPS.
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Welcome to the group, Enrico. Unfortunately, you have missed some of the information already posted. It is unfortunate that we haven't been able to create a good information source. But to answer your comments.
Well... I'm on bewelcome from years but it doesn't work apparently
It is true that the BeWelcome network is small for the moment. But can grow if people join and are active. It is where CS was a few years ago. For you to decide your priorities.
it wouldn't be strange if couchsurfing owners had bought it too to protect the brand.. or eventually the owner of bewelcome may sell the data themselves in the future... for sure we aren't safe until there are chiefs and owners…
BW has no owners. I'm something of an expert on French nonprofit law. Except in a world where beggars ride invisible purple unicorns, BeWelcome can not be privatized. It can not be sold. It will remain nonprofit. It is run by a large group of people.
In contrast, CS was always controlled by one person - as is the case with HC.
But no need to trust me. Do the research yourself.
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"I'm something of an expert on French nonprofit law."
We started this page this week, it would be excellent if you can add your knowledge to it! http://www.bewelcome.org/wiki/view/Can_BeWelcome_be_sold
"but it doesn't work apparently"
BeWelcome is still very small but it's growing a lot faster now than last year's summer. These days people are organizing meetings and discussing a lot on the forums. See also
http://www.bewelcome.org/stats
Whenever C$ makes a big mistake people are moving to BW and it seems that this process is kept up. You can see two spikes in the graphs. We're in one right now so it's hard to say how it stabilizes but with more and more people keeping protest profiles and talking about this with their friends I'm confident BW will be great in 2013. Especially in Europe, usually things spread from there, similar to the way HC lost it at some point.
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Hospitality Club was censoring messages containing the word "couchsurfing" and that didn't work out very well for Veit. Also I and other people have been "kicked" from HC because of mentioning BeWelcome. Censorship never works out very well on social networks.
ironically "old" ToU did not formally allow it (althought in other documents it is recommended) while the "new"ones do not mention this at all, so it will be compeltely free !
compare it !
"you dont realize an important point here, is that CS still let us in, while they could throw you out ( according to their rulez ) since you are doing ads for other websites as well as we are insulting and criticizing them most of the time."
There is nothing in CS rules which prevents providing information about a non-commercial website like BeWelcome. Neither is there anything forbidding being critical of CS, nor against thinking. Perhaps this is coming in the new website?
"Are you all sure that bewelcome can't be owned? It looks a bit strange to me honestly"
Yep, I know quite a few people who are in the official org. And I consider it extremely unlikely that there's a way it can ever be sold.
On top of that, there are a lot of developers who want to somehow decentralize the whole thing. So that it will be way easier to fork. It's the holy grail of social networks. And I think it could work one day. What is likely to happen is that people will be able to easily export their (own) BW profile. And like that it would be much easier for a group of people to fork if they somehow don't like BW policies.
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When you say you trust the legal team of a for-profit corporation, you
lose all credibility - even with them. No corporation trusts the legal
team of another corporation. Neither should any consumer.
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"there are only two groups of people whose information I trust on this 1)
The German Commissioner for Data Protection, and 2) The CS legal team."
You mean the one with one vouch, from a colleague, in two years?
The one who states they will get Safe Harbor Certification for incompatible ToU and Privacy Policy in one week, when anyone without a law degree can see how this cannot work?
I'll be honest, too: You are one funny white Irishman :-)
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I was referring properly to the white Irishman I quoted, not to the several women from Kanturk whose ethnicity I cannot know as it is not for sale ;-)
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"if a TOU require explaining, surely it needs re-writing on that basis alone?"
That is exactly my conclusion, too. Properly written Terms of Use and privacy policies, just for the rights that need to be covered to provide the services, would be a lot better than these non-binding and therefore useless explanations from a PR person. I have been having an exchange with Meredith Hutcheson on the blog and will post another response by the end of the day, which I will also post here as the blog is a mess.
@POLYGOT
looking forward to your next post. curious about meredith's response. i am on the fence now about whether to abandon CS and go to bewelcome, or try to fix CS from within, as i do still believe CS's original, core philosophy was a good one...
Thanks for the reminder. I have now updated the main thread about the blog post:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=45507&post=13260474#post13335362
We need a kamikaze worker at Couchsurfing.org to plant a virus on the databases internally. I'd be happy to pay him.
Who ever wants to follow the policy should have the right to choose if they wish to do so.
CS is hell.
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