SAMSUNG PULLS GALAXY TAB 7.7 FROM IFA DUE TO APPLE INJUNCTION

Apple's ongoing patent battle with Samsung has taken yet another twist, now that Cupertino has won an injunction blocking German sales of the recently unveiled Galaxy Tab 7.7. According to FOSS Patents, Samsung pulled its new Android tablet from both the IFA show floor and its German website on Saturday, in compliance with a Friday decision handed down by the same Düsseldorf Regional Court court that banned sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 last month.

The 7.7-inch slate had previously been on display with a sticker that read "Not for sale in Germany," but, as we noticed yesterday, all demo models, posters and other promotional materials have since been removed. Samsung spokesman James Chung told Bloomberg that the new injunction "severely limits consumer choice in Germany," but confirmed that the Korean manufacturer "respects the court's decision," and vowed to do everything it could to defend its intellectual property.

FACEBOOK'S LIKE BUTTON DECLARED ILLEGAL IN GERMAN STATE

Germany has a long tradition of using laws to protect its citizen’s privacy. Home owners, for example, can ask Google to pixelate their houses in Street View (maybe so that their garden gnomes can stay incognito?). Facebook’s facial recognition feature has also come under fire in recent weeks.

The latest target of Germany’s privacy advocates is Facebook’s ‘like’ button („Gefällt mir,“ in German). Thilo Weichert, the head of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection of the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, argues that Internet sites based in his state that use the ‘like’ button are illegally sending this data to Facebook, which in turn uses it to illegally create a profile of its users web habits.

Weichert argues that data from any user who clicks the ‘like’ button – including those who are not Facebook users (which seems to be the crux of the problem for Weichert) – is immediately transmitted to a server in the United States. Weichert told German newspaper FAZ that his concern is that “Facebook can track every click on a site, how long I’m there, what I’m interested in.”

According to the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection’s press release, Facebook uses this data to create “a broad individual and for members even a personalised profile. Such a profiling infringes German and European data protection law. There is no sufficient information of users and there is no choice; the wording in the conditions of use and privacy statements of Facebook does not nearly meet the legal requirements relevant for compliance of legal notice, privacy consent and general terms of use.”

German websites based in the state of Schleswig-Holstein have until the end of September to remove Facebook‘s ‘like’ button or face a fine of up to 50,000 Euro.