Our work
EDRi is the biggest European network defending rights and freedoms online. We work to to challenge private and state actors who abuse their power to control or manipulate the public. We do so by advocating for robust and enforced laws, informing and mobilising people, promoting a healthy and accountable technology market, and building a movement of organisations and individuals committed to digital rights and freedoms in a connected world.
Filter resources
-
How the Commission is out-manoeuvring the European Parliament to undermine net neutrality
The European Commission wants to bring an end to the open and competitive internet in Europe, for reasons that are not completely clear. Neither multiple consultations that showed the dangers of the approach, nor internal advice about the illegality of the proposals nor the needs of European citizens and businesses have been able to hold […]
Read more
-
Booklet: Human rights and privatised law enforcement
Our latest booklet is now online! The document looks at the extent to which “voluntary” law enforcement measures by online companies are serving to undermine long-established fundamental rights principles and much of the democratic value of the internet. Unquestionably, the successful campaigns against SOPA and ACTA demonstrate the democratic potential of the internet. Sharing of […]
Read more
-
Remember: Giancarlo Livraghi
Giancarlo Livraghi, the first president and founding member of EDRi member ALCEI Italy, passed away last Saturday. An active advocate of net freedom and culture, Giancarlo was also contributor to EDRi-gram on various ENDitorials trying to explain for our readership the Italian intricacies of Internet politics. His texts and thoughts are accurate even today, several […]
Read more
-
Linking content does not infringe copyright says ECJ
On 21 February 2014, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that a website could not be found to have infringed copyright for merely linking to content hosted elsewhere. The advice was given for the Svea hovrätt (Svea Court of Appeal, Sweden), in a case involving local journalists and aggregation Swedish company Retriever Sverige, a […]
Read more
-
The Turkish Government is trying to justify Internet censorship
A large and aggressive campaign has been deployed by the Turkish ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party) over the last few weeks in an attempt to justify Internet censorship. Paid-for advertising, press statements, op-eds in pro-government newspapers or tweets were meant to press the idea that censorship is a mean to protect Internet users […]
Read more
-
German ministers and Wikileaks on the NSA surveillance list
As if what has been revealed until now were not enough, after being ordered by President Barack Obama to stop spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, it appears that NSA has decided to extend its spying activities to other German government officials. “We have had the order not to miss out on any information now that […]
Read more
-
Merkel wants “Safe Communication Networks” for the EU
In the light of the NSA spying scandal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced plans to set up a European communications network meant to curb the US and GCHQ mass surveillance. “We will speak to France about this and about all things regarding what kind of European providers we have who can offer security for […]
Read more
-
Net neutrality in the European Parliament – what is happening?
After seven months of discussions, negotiations, lobbying and general confusion, the European Parliament’s Industry Committee was due to have a vote on Monday of this week on net neutrality. So… what happened? Well, nothing happened. Not exactly nothing… quite a long discussion in fact. There were just two items on the agenda, a vote on […]
Read more
-
Private copying levies – the choice between incoherence and a fair and balanced approach
After being delayed from December to January and from January to February, the incoherent, inaccurate, incomprehensible, contradictory “Castex Report” (PDF) on private copying levies was finally adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament last week. Next week**, the European Parliament has the choice to accept the deeply flawed text adopted by the […]
Read more
-
European Commission on global internet governance – do as we say, please don’t do as we do
On 12 February, the European Commission produced a broadly solid Communication (pdf) on global internet governance. Some of the policies promoted on a global level by the European Commission are really excellent – defend and promote fundamental rights and democratic values, multi-stakeholder governance structures, clear rules that respect rights and values and a single unfragmented […]
Read more
-
Google France published CNIL’s fine on its homepage
On 7 February 2014, the French State Council rejected Google’s request made on 14 January 2014 to partially suspend the penalty received for privacy infringement from CNIL – the French Data Protection Authority. On 3 January 2014, CNIL fined Google 150 000 euro over its privacy policies and was required to post a message regarding […]
Read more
-
Italian Supreme Court: Google’s Youtube is just a hosting provider
(title corrected from the newsletter version when the title was wrongfuly posted as “Italian Supreme Court: search engines are just hosting providers”) The Italian Supreme Court (Court of Cassation) finally comes to put an end to a long-term case brought in 2008 by Vividown association against three Google executives considered responsible for a post uploaded […]
Read more