Facebook-basher Schrems raises enough dosh to get his Noyb out

EU-based campaigner Max Schrems – famous for taking Silicon Valley to task over citizens' privacy rights – has set up a non-profit outfit called Noyb, having exceeded a crowdfunding target.

Noyb stands for “none of your business," and has, we're told, raised at least 300,000 Euros (£264,000, $373,354) from a Kickstarter campaign – enough to found the organization and get the ball rolling. Schrems hopes to eventually raise €500,000 in total to fully fund his Noyb.

The NGO will “start operations in May 2018,” which, it says, will be “just in time for the new EU data protection rules (GDPR).”

It will operate through “a strategic choice of informal warnings, legal complaints, model lawsuits and different forms of collective redress” to fight for netizens’ rights.

Schrems told The Register a few weeks ago that he was “retiring” from “bringing cases for the rest of my life." He had originally set the fundraising target for Noyb at 250,000 Euros (£220,000).

The Austrian PhD student is well-known as the bloke who keeps flinging sueballs at Facebook over its privacy policies and its sharing of people's personal information with America's government, spies and cops. ®