October 6, 2015 · Blogs

EU Commission: IT companies to fix “hate speech on the Internet”

At the Colloquium on Fundamental Rights on 2 October 2015, EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová gave a widely-reported speech on “hate speech”. At the meeting, she announced that she was organising a meeting between “IT companies, business, national authorities and civil society” in order to “tackle” online hate speech. With […]

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September 10, 2008

Death of website publisher shows deterioration of media freedom in Russia

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Russian and Ingush human rights organizations, as well as OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), are asking for an investigation into the circumstances of the murder of Magomed Yevloyev, the publisher of ingushetiya.ru, an independent news website in Ingushetia region. Yevloyev was a strong critic […]

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July 15, 2004

Court attacks Dutch internet anonymity

By verdict of 24 June 2004 the Appeals Court of Amsterdam in the Netherlands has to a large extent limited the freedom of internet users to express their opinion anonimously. The main issue in this principal case was whether internet provider Lycos was required to hand over the personal data of one of its subscribers […]

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September 27, 2006

Europe faces software patents threat again

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The software patents issue will be back, once again, for discussion, with the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) proposal which calls for the harmonization of patent laws in EU states. EPLA could to be voted on 11 October 2006 in the European Parliament. Last year, the Parliament […]

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October 22, 2014 · Blogs

France to follow Turkey’s lead on lawless Internet censorship

Despite many setbacks, bad publicity, budget cuts and a change of government, France is persisting with its Hadopi, a “three strikes law” and government agency to enforce copyright laws and fight online “piracy”. Even more worrying, the country’s Minister of Culture is now making moves to curb online rights even further. In the past years, the […]

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April 7, 2010

European Commission proposes Net blocking and defends illegal activity

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Europäische Kommission schlägt Netzsperren vor und verteidigt rechtswidrige Handlungen | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1831] On 29 March 2010, the European Commission re-launched its initiative on child exploitation. This initiative was originally launched in March 2009 as a “Framework Decision”, but was withdrawn due to the entry into force of the Lisbon […]

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October 10, 2007

Italian Minister of Justice wants to close sarcastic blog

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The Italian Police, following a complaint from Clemente Mastella, the Minister of Justice, has asked for the closing down of blog Mastellatiodio.blogspot.com (translation – I hate you Mastella) which has been placing material on the Minister that he considers as defamatory. If found so, the blog authors […]

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November 5, 2014 · Blogs

FTDI: Is the law criminal?

The EDRi-gram has previously reported on the general silliness, if not active harmfulness to an open society, of certain copying controls that are generically referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). However, it’s not often that a practical example comes around that underlines the problem and at the same time has potential to demonstrate the […]

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November 5, 2014 · Blogs

The “Google tax” that is not a Google tax

The new European Commissioner with responsibility for “digital agenda” issues, Guenther Oettinger caused a stir in the media recently when he raised the possibility of introducing “ancillary copyright” payments, requiring search engine providers to pay for displaying copyrighted materials on their sites, on the EU level. The press was all of a sudden full of […]

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October 9, 2013 · Blogs

LSE Report: File-Sharing Is Rather Beneficial To Music Industry

A new report shows again file-sharing is not detrimental to the entertainment industry sales, but quite the opposite. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has released a new policy brief asking the UK Government to take into consideration more than the industry lobbying efforts when deciding on the copyright enforcement policies such […]

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December 17, 2014 · Blogs

Data retention: EU Commission – guardian and enemy of the treaties

The new European Commissioner for Home Affairs plans to re-introduce new measures for the retention of telecommunications data, according to a report by German digital rights blog Netzpolitik.org. A spokesperson of the Commissioner for Home Affairs is quoted as saying that there was no longer doubt “if” there will be a directive, the only question […]

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October 23, 2013 · Blogs

Skype Is Investigated In Luxembourg For Its Relations To NSA

Skype, owned now by Microsoft, has entered the attention of Gerard Lommel, Luxembourg’s Data Protection Commissioner, as a result of the documents revealed by Edward Snowden in the PRISM affair. Gerard Lommel has put Skype under investigation over its possible secret collaboration with NSA, within PRISM spy programme, and the company could face criminal and […]

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