Facebook is appealing against the fine imposed in the UK following the Cambridge Analytics scandal - and it says it's doing it to defend your right to forward emails.
Last month, the UK's data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), imposed a half-million-pound fine on the firm for failing to ensure that citizens' data wasn't shared for political campaigning. The fine would have been far higher had the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules been in place at the time.
The case related to the discovery that data from a personality quiz was being shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which used it to target US voters with ads supporting Donald Trump.
However - and right on the deadline to do so - Facebook has challenged the ICO ruling on two main grounds.
First, it says, only data on US citizens was shared, meaning that British citizens were unaffected.
"The ICO's investigation stemmed from concerns that UK citizens' data may have been impacted by Cambridge Analytica, yet they now have confirmed that they have found no evidence to suggest that information of Facebook users in the UK was ever shared by Dr Kogan with Cambridge Analytica, or used by its affiliates in the Brexit referendum," says Facebook's VP & Associate General Counsel, EMEA, Anna Benckert.
"Therefore, the core of the ICO's argument no longer relates to the events involving Cambridge Analytica."
More surprisingly, perhaps, the company is arguing that the principles of data privacy under which the fine was imposed were flawed.
"Their reasoning challenges some of the basic principles of how people should be allowed to share information online, with implications which go far beyond just Facebook, which is why we have chosen to appeal," says Benckert.
"For example, under the ICO's theory people should not be allowed to forward an email or message without having agreement from each person on the original thread.
"These are things done by millions of people every day on services across the internet, which is why we believe the ICO's decision raises important questions of principle for everyone online which should be considered by an impartial court based on all the relevant evidence."
It's certainly one way of looking at it. But if you take the same argument to the opposite extreme, then there's nothing wrong with sharing any data, any time - a view with which the appeals tribunal is hardly likely to agree.
