June 2, 2010

EC negotiation mandate for EU-US personal data protection agreement

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [EK-Verhandlungsmandat für Datenschutzabkommen zwischen der EU und den USA | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1971] On 26 May 2010, the European Commission (EC) announced having drafted a mandate for the negotiation of a data protection agreement with the US in view of ensuring a high level of protection of personal information, such […]

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July 1, 2009

Rapidshare forced by the court to filter more than 5000 tracks

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Gericht zwingt Rapidshare, über 5000 Tracks zu filtern | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1450] The file-sharing site Rapidshare.de has recently lost another case to the German copyright society GEMA, being ordered by the Regional Court in Hamburg to “proactively filter” more than 5000 tracks from GEMA’s catalogue. In January 2008, another regional […]

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June 2, 2010

How many websites does Turkey block?

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Wie viele Webseiten sperrt die Türkei? | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1972] That information hasn’t been updated since May 2009. This is why Prof Yaman Akdeniz, who teaches Internet law at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, has initiated a trial, based on the Turkish law on access to public information. In May 2009, the […]

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July 1, 2009

Judge unbiased, no retrial for The Pirate Bay

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Richter nicht voreingenommen, keine Wiederaufnahme des Prozesses für The Pirate Bay | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1451] On 25 June 2009, Sweden’s Court of Appeal ruled that judge Norström in The Pirate Bay (TPB) case was not biased as the lawyers representing TPB founders had claimed. Therefore there will be no retrial […]

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June 2, 2010

Austria puts more pressure on Google Street View

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Österreich erhöht Druck auf Google Street View | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1973] Austrian Data Protection Authority (DSK) placed a temporary ban on Google’s Street View cars, The DSK intends to sanction the collection of private data from unencrypted wifi networks and therefore wants to see changes to the EU data protection […]

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July 1, 2009

'Right to the silence of the chips' in the new EC Communication

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [„Recht auf das Schweigen der Chips“ in der neuen Mitteilung der EC | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1452] A new communication from the European Commission to the other European bodies on the RFID (radio-frequency identification) titled “Internet of Things – An action plan for Europe” was made public on 18 June 2009. […]

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July 1, 2009

Norway will not chase file-sharers

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Norwegen wird File-Sharer nicht verfolgen | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1453] The Norwegian data protection authority has decided that ISPs had to delete all IP address-related data just 3 weeks after collection, a decision that will make difficult to chase file-sharers. The regulator started with two ISPs, Tele2 and Lyse Tele but […]

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June 2, 2010

ENDitorial: EP Legal Affairs adopts incoherent report on IPR enforcement

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [ENDitorial: Rechtsausschuss des EP verabschiedet inkohärenten Urheberrechtsbericht | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1975] This week, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament adopted a far-reaching, contradictory and, at times, fundamentalist non-legislative report on enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Committee report takes some quite extreme, apocalyptic and sometimes almost comically absurd […]

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July 1, 2009

France: No to new EDVIGE!

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Frankreich: Kein neues EDVIGE! | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1454] A text of a draft law on Police Files initiated by the two French deputies Delphine Batho and Jacques-Alain Bénisti has been approved by the Laws Commission of the National Assembly. The draft law contains a new form of the EDVIGE file, […]

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July 1, 2009

Swedish court: IP addresses are personal data

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Schwedisches Gericht: IP-Adressen sind persönliche Daten | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1455] Macedonian: [Шведска: ИП адресите се лични податоци | http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edri/shvedska-ip-adresite-se-lichni-podatoci.html] The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court ruled on 18 June that the IP addresses are personal data in a case regarding APB (the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau, Antipiratbyrån), a lobby group representing copyright […]

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June 16, 2010

New SWIFT agreement as bad as the rejected one

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Neues SWIFT-Abkommen so schlecht wie das alte | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1998] The EU Commission adopted on 15 June 2010 the new agreement with the US Department of Treasury (DoT) on the transfer of data to the DoT’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP), informally called “SWIFT agreement” because it relies on […]

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July 1, 2009

The French Government acts like a bulldog with its three strikes law

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Die französische Regierung benimmt sich beim 3 Treffer-Gesetz wie eine Bulldogge | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1456] Nicolas Sarkozy and the French Government want to go on with the new three strikes draft law (called also Hadopi 2) which was presented to the Council of Ministers on 24 June 2009. The emergency […]

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