Although we think it's generally a pretty nifty feature, valid concerns over the misuse of Facebook's auto-recognition tagging have lead Germany to ban it entirely. That's right—Facebook in its current state is now illegal. Deep Scheiße, Zuckerberg.


The German government—which possesses perhaps the world's most adamant privacy laws as a result of Nazi and subsequent postwar abuse—considers The Book's facial recognition a violation of "the right to anonymity," The Atlantic Wire reports. Hard to imagine anyone saying that over here, isn't it?


Unless Facebook makes sufficient changes—by making it easier for German users to delete their stored faces, or even disabling the feature entirely—they'll face up to $500,000 in fines. Which, really is absolutely nothing to Facebook. But the bad press—a powerful country declaring your website illegal—is probably worth a hell of a lot more than a half a million.

Facebook has two weeks to respond. They maintain they're not breaking any laws. [The Atlantic Wire]