German Official Urges Citizens to Stop Using Facebook

Official sites in Scheswig-Holstein must also delete their Facebook Pages and Like buttons

Germany's war on Facebook just got fiercer. The Associated Press reports:

The state of Schleswig-Holstein's data protection commissioner, Thilo Weichert, on Friday ordered state institutions to shut down the fan pages on the social networking site and remove the "Like" button from their websites, saying it leads to profiling that violates German and European law. …

He also urged Internet users in general to "keep their fingers from clicking on social plug-ins" and "not set up a Facebook account" to avoid being profiled.

Last year, German officials issued a widespread ban on Google Street View, and there is pending legislation that could limit Facebook use within their border. If German officials won't stand for the Like button, they're definitely not going to go for Facebook's facial recognition features.