Europe "can seize world leadership" in the free flow of data because of its general data protection regulation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology data scientist Alex Pentland said at a Monday conference in Tallinn, Estonia, webcast by the Estonian EU Presidency. Europe is farthest along among developed economies in talking about what it wants a data economy to look like, he said. Once the question of what data individuals own is answered through the EU General Data Protection Regulation, policymakers can decide what information other stakeholders, such as governments and businesses, own, Pentland said. National government and European Commission officials said they have concerns.
Dugie Standeford
Dugie Standeford, European Correspondent, Communications Daily and Privacy Daily, is a former lawyer. She joined Warren Communications News in 2000 to report on internet policy and regulation. In 2003 she moved to the U.K. and since then has covered European telecommunications issues. She previously covered the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and intellectual property law matters. She has a degree in psychology from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law.
The EC fined Google 2.4 billion euros ($2.72 billion) for abusing its market position as a search engine and ordered it to clean up its act within 90 days. The decision on the company's comparison shopping service finds, for the first time, Google is dominant in the general internet search market, which under EU law means it bears a special responsibility not to abuse its dominance, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said at a Tuesday news briefing. That finding sets precedent that can be used to determine whether Google also is breaching competition rules in other "vertical" comparison search markets such as mapping, hotel and flight search markets, she said. Rivals cheered the decision, while the tech industry worried it will hurt innovation. Google said it's considering an appeal.
ICANN fails to include privacy advocates in efforts to comply with new EU data protection laws, activists said. Meeting this week in Johannesburg, the body holds a policy discussion Tuesday on practical solutions to the potential impact of the EU general data protection regulation (GDPR). Privacy experts haven't been asked to take part on the panel despite ICANN's approach to data protection long being flawed and, under the GDPR, the organization could be subject to large penalties, they said.
EU electronic communications privacy rules would be extended to over-the-top players, machine-to-machine and IoT communications under a controversial European Commission proposal. The proposed ePrivacy Regulation (ePR) to replace the current law (Directive 2002/58/EC) is needed because of increasing consumer and business reliance on newer internet-based communications services such as VoIP, instant messaging and web-based email, which aren't subject to current rules, the EC said. The draft raised concerns during a Wednesday debate in the European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee. It got industry criticism.
The European Commission's expected fine against Google Search likely will be the headline, but banning Google's "immensely harmful manipulation practices will be far more important," U.K. vertical search company Foundem said in a statement Monday. Foundem, the lead complainant in the EU Google Search case, predicted any final order likely will extend beyond comparison shopping and won't be limited to desktop searches. A spokesman for the Competition Directorate said "the investigation is ongoing." Google didn't comment.
The U.K. and France are exploring new ways to hold tech companies liable for failing to remove extremist content, they said Tuesday. British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron, who met this week to talk counterterrorism, said their online anti-radicalism plan could include fines for companies that don't act. The governments want corporations to "do more and abide by their social responsibility to step up their efforts to remove harmful content from their networks." YouTube and Microsoft said they're working on the problem. One digital rights group, however, said neither the European Commission nor most EU countries show much real interest in tackling illegal online materials.
A tight vote by the first European Parliament panel to vet proposed copyright reform rules shows how hard the struggle for user rights could be, said one lawmaker and several digital rights activists. Five committees are reviewing the European Commission proposal to update copyright laws, headed by the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI). Among issues are whether internet platforms should monitor user uploads, whether companies such as Google should pay for linking to news sites, and whether there should be a copyright exception for user-generated content (UGC). Small majorities that decided the final June 8 vote by the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee highlight "how close this fight is," said Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Julia Reda, of Germany and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
The WannaCry ransomware attack hit European businesses hard, but new regulations aren't needed, experts told us. The cyberattack, which affected about 200,000 computers in some 150 countries (see 1705150008), prompted the "first ever case of cyber cooperation at EU level" between the European Network and Information Security Agency and some national governments, ENISA said. Security experts faulted failures to keep computer systems updated, and NSA and U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) for keeping the vulnerability that enabled WannaCry secret and not fixing it. The European Commission said it's reviewing its cybersecurity strategy.
Talks on a treaty updating broadcasting protections against signal piracy continued at the World Intellectual Property Organization, but progress at least temporarily stalled, said representatives from nongovernmental organizations Wednesday. Under a new Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) chairman, Singapore Intellectual Property Office Chief Executive Daren Tang, it became clear the treaty text wasn't ready to move to diplomatic conference next year, they said. Key issues remain unresolved, but broadcasters hope for some forward movement, European Broadcasting Union Head-Intellectual Property Heijo Ruijsenaars told us.
Virtual reality and augmented reality generate legal questions for courts, companies and users but may not require a fundamental rethinking of existing legal doctrines, said law professors and tech lawyers in articles and interviews. AR and VR implicate a broad range of laws, including criminal and tort, and raise questions about how to enforce them in the virtual world, they said. There are no definitive answers, "but the very existence of VR and AR poses the questions in new ways" that may go to the assumptions law makes about freedom and harm in the physical and virtual world, law professors Mark Lemley and Eugene Volokh wrote in a March 17 working paper.