Eideard

German data watchdogs on Friday ordered state agencies to shut down their Facebook pages and remove “like” buttons from their Web sites, suggesting that anyone who uses Facebook will have their online activity tracked.

“All institutions in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany [must] shut down their fan pages on Facebook and remove social plug-ins such as the ‘like’-button from their Web sites,” the German Data Protection Commissioner’s Office said in a statement. “Whoever visits facebook.com or uses a plug-in must expect that he or she will be tracked by the company for two years.”

After “thorough and legal analysis,” the commission said it concluded that Facebook and its “like” button violates Germany’s Telemedia Act and its Federal Data Protection Act because data is transferred to the U.S. and Web analytics are sent to Web site owners…

German agencies have until the end of September to stop using Facebook for official business. Failure to do so could result in fines. Commissioner Thilo Weichert said in a statement that those agencies “cannot shift their responsibility for data privacy” to Facebook or the user.

Facebook, however, denied that its activity was in violation of any EU laws…

The commission said today’s ban is “only the beginning of a continuing privacy impact analysis of Facebook applications.” It also advised people to “keep their fingers from clicking on social plug-ins such as the ‘like’-button and not to set up a Facebook account if they wish to avoid a comprehensive profiling by this company.”

There are solid historic reasons for Germans to prefer to have a nanny state protect their rights to privacy. There also are pretty good reasons to classify the heavy-handed approach as total crap equally reminiscent of a totalitarian past.

Not especially different from conservatives who blather against political correctness – unless the topic is one of their ongoing campaigns to legislate morality, sex, music and thought that might displease someone with their brain still stuck into the 19th Century. Or the 14th Century.

He does the tears as well as anyone in Congress

Christian von Boetticher, 40, the successful state legislator at the top of the Christian Democratic Union’s ticket in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, resigned as head of the party there during a tearful news conference on Sunday. He admitted to the affair with a 16-year-old girl, which was legal under German law, and to making a misjudgment, but insisted that he had nothing to be ashamed of because it was “a very unusual love.”

It is also an unusual scandal — not only because of the girl’s age, which was at the border of permissible and punishable, but also because of the role played by the social networking site.

In some ways, the fact of her youth was less strange to conservative voters and colleagues “than that a grown man with more important things to do would spend so much time playing around on this network with nothing better to do than trade messages with a young girl,” said Rudolf Kötter, director of the Center for Advanced Ethics and Science Communications at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Long before news of the affair became public, colleagues expressed concerns that Mr. Boetticher dallied on the site too much, sharing information about his social life in status updates the party might have preferred remained private.

He posted about polo parties and expensive bottles of Brunello di Montalcino wine he had just opened. Der Spiegel magazine reported that he had skipped a political discussion to watch a lunar eclipse, then posted about it on his wall…

According to Mr. Boetticher, the girl’s parents as well as his friends knew about the relationship. The girl, now 17, who has not been named, defended her former lover in newspaper interviews…But she probably also embarrassed him as she described the hundreds of Facebook and text messages he sent her before that first meeting, not to mention the fact that they spent two straight days in the Steigenberger Hotel in Düsseldorf, having sex the first time they met face to face…

In the Berliner Zeitung, the columnist Jutta Kramm expressed surprise that Mr. Boetticher thought it necessary to step down over the affair, which she described as a very American phenomenon. American morals are often viewed with indulgent condescension here in Germany, where nude sunbathing and explicit sexual scenes on public television are widely considered normal.

“Extramarital affairs, illegitimate children, first and second wives or husbands, libidinous escapades or particular sexual preferences indeed may provide fodder for rumors and offer excellent material for gossip and scandal but they have almost never been a reason to resign,” Ms. Kramm wrote.

Perhaps Christian conservatives in Germany are making ready to imitate their distant cousins in the United States. Would you be surprised if our conservatives’ holier-than-thou hypocrisy became an export commodity?

Up to 3,000 tonnes of an animal feed additive sold in Germany have been found to contain traces of dioxin, according to a government report.

Earlier, officials said they believed that just 527 tonnes of the additive – which is a type of fat – had been contaminated.

After dioxin was found in eggs and poultry last week, more than 1,000 farms were banned from selling eggs…

Dioxin is a poisonous chemical, linked to the development of cancer in humans…

Police carried out searches on Wednesday at the Schleswig-Holstein farm which produced the fat, Harles and Jentzsch, and a subsidiary in Lower Saxony.

Harles and Jentzsch sold the fat to 25 German feed manufacturers…

Officials say the warning to consumers applies only to eggs sold before 23 December.

Under current German law, offenders who use harmful or banned substances in food and animal feed can be fined or face up to three years in prison.

And, um, don’t feel too smug or encouraged by our own FDA regs just having been upgraded for the first time in over 70 years. The Party of NO has vowed to prevent any funding for inspection or enforcement of new food safety procedures.