German official dislikes Facebook 'Like' button.

• Position: SOCIAL MEDIA

A German official believes Facebook's "Like" button may violate European (EU) law.

Thilo Weichert, data protection commissioner in the German state of Sehleswig-Holstein, has ordered all institutions from the province to delete their fan pages on the site and remove any "Like" buttons integrated into their own websites. He said the feature allows Facebook to collect data on users' browsing habits illegally.

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According to Weichert, the Like button breaches provincial, national, and EU law because Facebook's U.S. servers can collect data about a user's surfing habits by logging the IP addresses of Internet users whose visits result in Like buttons being loaded.

Facebook confirmed that it could see "information such as the IP address" of users who visit sites with a Like button, but said the data was deleted within 90 days, "in keeping with normal industry standards."

Websites in Schleswig-Holstein must comply with Weichert's order to remove the offending Facebook features from their websites or they will face fines of up to 50,000 [euro].

Weichert is not the only one who dislikes the "Like" button. Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) is currently investigating the legality of the feature in response to a complaint from an Austrian-based lobby group called Europe v. Facebook. The group contends that the button allows Facebook to track the online activity of any web user, even those users who are not...