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November 5, 2003

Lawsuit about website French trade union

On Monday 3 November, in intermediary proceedings against not-for-profit provider RAS in a Paris court, two telemarketing companies demanded the immediate take-down of the website of the radical trade union SUD PTT. The lawsuit was brought against the ISP and the trade union by the companies Ceritex and Mediatel. According to their complaint, some remarks […]

October 22, 2003 · Blogs

EDRI-gram – Number 20, 22 October 2003

October 22, 2003

Expert meeting on spam in Brussels

With only a few days to go before the 31 October deadline for the transposition of the new Directive for Privacy and Electronic Communications, on 13 October the Commission organised a public workshop about spam. More than 200 public and private stake-holders attended, ranging from government representatives to consumer & civil rights groups and from […]

October 22, 2003

199 amendments on IP enforcement directive

Last Monday, the European Parliament’s Judicial Affairs Committee (JURI) should have discussed its Report on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. But the agenda was so overcrowded that the Rapporteur, French MEP Janelly Fourtou, could only make some introductory remarks before the session was over. Overwhelmed by the large number of 199 amendments the Parliament’s […]

October 22, 2003

Still no EU Data Protection Supervisor

European discussions can’t agree on the appointment of a European privacy-czar. The European parliament insists on choosing Joaquín Bayo Delgado, who has no experience in data protection issues, as the new EU Data Protection Supervisor. The Council favours the Dutch Data Protection Commissioner Peter Hustinx. Jorge Salvador Hernández Mollar, the President of the European Parliament’s […]

October 22, 2003

First decision against spam in Poland

The Polish agency for Competition and Consumer Protection recently for the first time condoned a spammer. According to the agency, the Firm Edukacyjna Impuls Plus from the city of Grudziadz had violated the Provision of Electronic Services Bill by sending unsolicited commercial mail. The businessman was ordered to stop such actions and to publish a […]

October 22, 2003

'Mandatory data retention is unlawful'

A legal opinion commissioned by EDRI-member Privacy International and provided by the law firm Covington & Burling concludes that mandatory data retention plans in the EU are unlawful. The opinion, which relates to an EU framework directive on the retention of communications data, has profound ramifications for ten EU states that have implemented, or are […]

October 22, 2003

EU health chip

The European Union has taken steps towards the creation of an EU-wide health identity card. By 2008 there will be a new card with a microchip that can store a range of biometric and personal data. Approved by Union ministers in Luxembourg the plastic disk will slide into the credit-card pouch of a wallet or […]

October 22, 2003

Dutch Big Brother Award for Minister of Justice

The Dutch Big Brother Awards were presented in front of a 300 person audience in Amsterdam on the 11th of October. With the Awards the person, company, governmental institution and initiative are rewarded for damaging the privacy of citizens in 2003 the most. The 4 winners of 2003 are: minister of Justice Piet Hein Donner; […]

October 22, 2003

White paper on notice and take-down

The RightsWatch Project, a research project funded under the European Commission’s Information Society Technology programme, produced a white paper on notice and take-down of websites. During a 2 year project RightsWatch tried to develop consensus between providers, right holders and internet users about self-regulatory notice and takedown (NTD) procedures. The attempts miserably failed, since self-regulation […]

October 22, 2003

Report of WSIS prepcom 3

From 15 to 26 September 2003 governments and civil society assembled in Geneva for the third preparatory conference for the World Summit on the Information Society. The two weeks ended with many key issues still unresolved, and with a last-minute proposal to reconvene for an extra session from 10 to 14 November. EDRI members IRIS […]

October 22, 2003

IPR Enforcement: rapporteur ready for compromise

On 4 November there was a heated debate in the Judicial Affairs Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament about the proposed new directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. According to Social Democrat Willy Rothley from Germany “the EU Commission aggressively attempts to exceed its authorities and assume competencies it does not hold. Senselessly, […]