Looking at China's Facebook (RenRen) through the Lens of European Data Protection Principles

22 Pages Posted: 2 May 2013

See all articles by Kunbei Zhang

Kunbei Zhang

Leiden University - Center for Law in the Information Society

Aernout Schmidt

eLaw@Leiden, Centre for Law in the Information Society

Date Written: April 29, 2013

Abstract

Social networking systems (SNS) are emerging as a cultural phenomenon in China and a Chinese SNS industry is rapidly developing. While greatly enriching their users' lives, these systems bring issues of private law data protection to the fore. The paper tests the data protection quality of RenRen (China's Facebook), by investigating how RenRen with its privacy arrangements of Chinese heritage would be understood in Europe anno 2013. The research method mainly consists in processing specific information on RenRen's compliance with EU data protection principles as well as observing privacy policies issued by RenRen. As presented in the conclusion section, the authors demonstrate that the differences between Chinese and EU private law data protection practices could well be converging as a result of the trend towards informational globalization, but that this trend is not yet sufficiently understood. As such this paper should be of interest to a broad readership including those interested in informational privacy, social networking and Chinese data protection law.

Keywords: RenRen, Facebook, Data Protection, Compliance

Suggested Citation

Zhang, Kunbei and Schmidt, Aernout, Looking at China's Facebook (RenRen) through the Lens of European Data Protection Principles (April 29, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2257907 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2257907

Kunbei Zhang (Contact Author)

Leiden University - Center for Law in the Information Society ( email )

P.O. Box 9520
2300 RA Leiden, NL-2300RA
Netherlands

Aernout Schmidt

eLaw@Leiden, Centre for Law in the Information Society ( email )

P.O. Box 9520
2300 RA Leiden, NL-2300RA
Netherlands
+31 71 5277832 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.leidenuniv.nl/org/metajuridica/elaw/medewerkers/aernoutschmidt

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
126
Abstract Views
808
Rank
435,324
PlumX Metrics