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ENDitorial: Commissioner defends nuclear attack on internet freedom
The European Commission launched its proposal for a Copyright Directive in September 2016. The legislation includes new rules on filtering of uploads to the internet, text and data mining and the so-called “link tax”.
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“Follow the money” on copyright infringements
The European Commission is pushing forward energetically on privatised law enforcement projects for all manner of internet activities. This is the approach to terrorism, hate speech, copyright enforcement… whatever the question, the answer is that internet companies can solve the problem.
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Shadow regulations – unfair and undemocratic
Shadow Regulations are voluntary agreements between companies (sometimes described as codes, principles, standards, or guidelines) to regulate your use of the internet, often without your knowledge.
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Censorship in Italy: Child protection is the excuse again
One of the recurrent attempts to control the internet is the excuse of “child protection”. Italy has moved a step to this direction, and is going to release a new law against “cyberbullying” that confirms this new trend. This new project follows the same well-worn, failed approach.
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Orange is the new blacklist
On Monday morning 17 October, Orange customers who tried to access Google.fr, fr.wikipedia.org and other sites found themselves being redirected to the site of the Interior Ministry explaining that those sites were blocked. The banned websites were accused of “provoking terrorist acts or publicly glorifying terrorist acts”.
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Booklet: Your guide to the Digital Defenders
Today, we are publishing a booklet "Your guide to Digital Defenders vs. Data Intruders - Privacy for kids!", to help young people between 10-14 years to protect their privacy.
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Corporate-sponsored privacy confusion in the EU on trade and data protection
After the “Privacy shield” was adopted on 12 July 2016, the European Commission started internal discussions about whether or not to include “data flows” and “data localisation” clauses in Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and in the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). It appears that the European Commission Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG […]
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#2 Freedom to have secrets: How to keep your information private
Lee este artículo en español This is the second blogpost of our series dedicated to privacy, security and freedoms. In the coming weeks, we will explain how your freedoms are under threat, and what you can do to fight back. In our previous blogpost we described “cookies” and how they help to make a profile […]
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Big Brother Awards Belgium: Facebook is the privacy villain of the year
Big Brother Awards Belgium 2016 – The Devil is in the Default On 6 October, the Belgian Big Brother Awards 2016 took place in Brussels. The negative prize for the worst privacy abuser was unanimously granted to Facebook by the professional jury. The public confirmed Facebook’s title as the ultimate privacy villain of the year – […]
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Social media as censors of public sphere: YouTube vs. Ombudsman
In early September 2016, a popular Norwegian writer got suspended from Facebook, on account of “child nudity”. The matter escalated into an international incident, involving Norway’s largest printed newspaper and the country’s prime minister. Finally the writer’s Facebook status was restored, the suspension was ended, and Facebook promised to do better.
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ENDitorial: It is possible that Netflix is legal in Ireland – or not
Perhaps it should come as a surprise that copyrighted data are protected in law more rigorously than personal data in Europe. In data protection law, there is a “legitimate interest” exception: if you are processing personal data because you have a “legitimate interest” in doing so, and if this does not undermine the rights of […]
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The GS Media case: An attack on the world wide web
The cliché goes that “hard cases make for bad law”. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgment in GS Media case (C‑160/15) is one of the real-life examples of this. It is not easy to sympathise with the losing party, GS Media, who exploits a provocative blog with the name “GeenStijl” (which […]
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