December 11, 2020 · Blogs | Press mentions | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection | Online tracking industry / AdTech | Platform regulation | Privacy and confidentiality

Big Tech’s dominance: only laws can limit its power

Big Tech companies like Facebook have grown so large that the U.S. antitrust authority F.T.C. is considering breaking them up. We need laws that limit the power tech firms wields over our lives.

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December 1, 2021 · Blogs | Open internet and inclusive technology | Alternatives to dominant digital services | Platform regulation

EU Parliament Takes First Step Towards a Fair and Interoperable Market

The EU’s Proposal for a Digital Market Act (DMA) is an attempt to create a fairer and more competitive market for online platforms in the EU. It sets out a standard for very large platforms, which act as gatekeepers between business users and end users. As gatekeepers “have substantial control over the access to, and are entrenched in digital markets,” the DMA sets out a list of dos and don'ts with which platforms will have to comply.

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June 4, 2003

Irish DPA threatens government with court case

According to an article in the Irish Times of 26 May, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner Mr Joe Meade has twice threatened to begin High Court proceedings against the Government for using an “invalid” Ministerial Direction to unconstitutionally store citizens’ phone, fax and mobile call data for 3 years. As reported in EDRI-gram nr. 3, […]

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March 23, 2016 · Blogs

The lobby-tomy 3: who are lobbying?

Did you know that there are 340,000 dentists in Europe? And that they lobby about privacy? Who else lobbies? How do parties/groups create coalitions to persuade policy makers? What’s the mayor of Amsterdam doing in Brussels? In this blog on the privacy lobby we describe the different parties that are lobbying. The new European data […]

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March 11, 2015 · Blogs

France implements Internet censorship without judicial oversight

The recent terrorist attacks in Europe have led to many statements implying the necessity of limiting citizens’ fundamental rights to ensure public safety. At the European level we are faced with the alarming prospect of air passenger data (Passenger Name Records, PNR) collection and long-term storage, while in France the legislative mills are turning even faster. […]

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January 30, 2008

Main data protection concerns with the EU policy developments in 2007

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The Lisbon Treaty was signed in December 2007. Notwithstanding the many critics raised by this Treaty, the text, when ratified by all member States, will bring two major improvements to the EU and its citizens. First, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union will become […]

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April 5, 2017 · Blogs

Reckless social media law threatens freedom of expression in Germany

At the end of March 2017, with Federal elections on the horizon, the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas proposed a law on ill-defined “social networks”. Minister Maas has proposed the law which places a variety of obligations on the companies, in the apparent hope that this will lead profit-motivated companies to take over private censorship […]

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April 8, 2016 · Blogs

Special report: Poland’s secret services are still using and abusing telecom and Internet data

With almost two million requests for telecommunication data and more than two thousand requests for Internet data concerning Polish citizens in 2015, it is clear that the access to metadata in Poland by the country’s secret services is still out of control. Compared to 2014, the Polish Panoptykon Foundation found that the number of requests […]

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October 1, 2021 · Blogs | Press releases | Privacy and data protection | Platform regulation

DSA should tackle the root cause of polarisation, not just its symptoms

Yesterday, 30 September 2021, the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) approved its Opinion on the proposed Digital Services Act (DSA). European Digital Rights (EDRi) and its 45 member organisations had previously called on JURI members to reject the compromise proposed by the Rapporteur for Opinion.

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June 10, 2013 · Blogs

PRISM explains the wider lobbying issues surrounding EU data protection reform

The European Commission’s Communication on Cloud Computing (pdf) forecasts a spend of 45 billion Euro on such services in the EU in 2020. The stakes are therefore huge for the countries and regions that can show themselves to be trustworthy for the processing of both personal and business data. With no comprehensive federal privacy legislation […]

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May 16, 2018 · Blogs | Information democracy | Open internet and inclusive technology | Privacy and data protection

A guide to EDRi at RightsCon 2018

This year, three members of our Brussels office are attending RghtsCon in Toronto: Executive Director Joe McNamee, Senior Policy Adviser Maryant Fernández Pérez and Policy Intern Gemma Shields. The conference days are full of panels, meetings, informal get-togethers and fun activities. Here is our guide to the sessions moderated or attended by EDRi staff. Wednesday […]

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April 20, 2016 · Blogs

CETA to get priority ahead of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

CETA will undermine EU Charter of Fundamental Rights In February 2016, the European Commission and Canadian government published the final draft text of the EU – Canada trade agreement (CETA), prior to its approval or rejection by the Council, European Parliament and, possibly, national parliaments. The Court of Justice of the EU in October 2015 […]

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