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Digital Single Market: The EU Parliament responds to the Commission
On 19 January 2016, the European Parliament voted to adopt its report “Towards a Digital Single Market Act”. This Resolution is a non-legislative statement, prepared by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), in response to the European Commission’s Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy presented on […]
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EDRi’s submission to the “Platforms consultation”
EDRi submitted its response to the European Commission consultation on platforms, online intermediaries, data, cloud computing and the collaborative economy on the 24 December 2015. The consultation covered a very broad range of different online services such as AirBnB, eBay, Netflix, Facebook, YouTube and others, which were labeled under the dubious denomination of “platform”. It […]
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Case Closed: Ombudsman decides GCHQ letters are of public interest
Almost two years after having been opened, case 2004/2013/PMC was closed by Emily O’Reilly, the EU Ombudsman, on the 5 November 2015. The case concerned the complain of a German journalist about the European Commission’s refusal to allow access to documents on internet surveillance by the British secret services – mainly the Government Communications Headquarters […]
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Copyright reform: Restoring the facade of a decrepit building
“The Special Rapporteur also proposes to expand copyright exceptions and limitations to empower new creativity, enhance rewards to authors, increase educational opportunities, preserve space for non-commercial culture and promote inclusion and access to cultural works.” These recommendations come from the 2014 report on Copyright policy and the right to science and culture, from the UN […]
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EU Commission platforms consultation: Just how biased is it?
The EU’s consultation raises more questions than answers – we wonder why the real questions are not being asked:
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European Internet Forum – untransparent and dangerous
The European Internet Forum will finally be launched on 3 December by the European Commission. The purpose of the initiative is to fight terrorism by large online companies doing things that seem like they might be useful to fight terrorism. “It is fanciful to the point of being childish to believe that online giants are […]
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EU Council on Data Retention: “Can we please just have it back?”
One and a half years after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidated the Data Retention Directive, the idea of having an EU data retention instrument is back on the table. On 8 September 2015, officials from the European Commission (EC) told EDRi that, despite the evidence that we provided of the […]
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Smart Borders package: Unproportionate & unnecessary data collection
“The proposal is fear-driven and fear-triggering at the same time, placing emphasis on a putative need to protect the EU from those coming from outside.” (Extract from EDRi’s response to the consultation) In an attempt to overcome the failed proposal from 2013 on the Smart Borders package, the European Commission launched a consultation to prepare […]
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ENDitorial: A system you never heard of undermined net neutrality
Trialogues. You may never have heard of them but they’re the single biggest threat to the credibility of European Parliament’s claim to be a democratic institution. Net neutrality explains why. In September 2013, the European Commission produced its half-baked anti-net neutrality/spectrum/user-rights/roaming proposal. The European Commission believed that the “end of roaming” was such an attractive […]
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Net neutrality: The European Parliament has decided not to decide
The European Parliament today voted for a Regulation on a Single Market for Electronic Communications. The EU institutions will claim that this will protect net neutrality. This is sadly not true.
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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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Civil society calls for reform of trialogues in a letter to EU Commission, Parliament and Council
European Digital Rights (EDRi), together with 17 signatory organisations, today sent an open letter to European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council Secretary-General Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, calling for a major reform of the so-called “trialogues”. “Trialogues cannot be a means for EU institutions to circumvent their obligations with regard to transparency and […]
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