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Leaked EU Communication – Part 2: Protecting Google at all costs
While the European Commission talks tough about supporting European industry, much of what is in the leaked Communication on online platforms appears to be designed to protect Google and other online giants, to the detriment of competition and European innovation. “Fair payments” for copyright The Communication refers obtusely to the notion of “fair” distribution of […]
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EU decides that Google is not a search engine
The European Union has adopted legislation which establishes that Google is not a search engine. After two years of legislative process and negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, the final text would also mean that Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckgo are also not search engines. As part of the broad […]
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Journalistic plagiarism not covered under Google’s right to erasure
On 24 December 2015, the Amsterdam District Court delivered a new ruling on the “right to erasure” for personal search results on Google (known to some as the “right to be forgotten”). In the Netherlands, this right has thus far been interpreted restrictively, with courts emphasising the importance of freedom to access information online. This […]
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Google admits it was wrong on “right to be forgotten”
In the widely publicised “Google/Spain” ruling of the European Court of Justice (CJEU), it was decided that the results of Google searches sometimes infringe the rights of individuals. In such circumstances, individuals can complain – to Google in the first instance – and ask for searches involving their name to be de-linked from the unfair […]
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Danish Ministry of Culture: Danes should be regulated by Google
In 2012, ACTA was rejected by the European Parliament with an overwhelming majority, not least due to its proposals to allow private law enforcement by foreign internet companies. Despite this, on 8 May 2015, the Danish Ministry of Culture presented a “Code of Conduct” agreement with a number of internet intermediaries, which in many respects […]
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Czech Big Brother Awards shine light on privacy invasions
EDRi-member Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) organised the Czech Big Brother Awards 2014, which marks the the tenth time the event has been held. The Awards ceremony took place in the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague on 25 February 2015. The concept of the Big Brother Awards was created by Privacy International in the UK […]
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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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Google pushes forward with its voluntary pro-copyright policing
For the past number of years, Google has chosen to impose US copyright law on the world, completely de-indexing any website which fulfils the non-judicial criteria of a valid order under American law. Last year alone, it removed 222 000 000 links, which means 74 links per second. In addition to applying US copyright law […]
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Balancing rights (unless we are talking about copyright)
Recently Google was asked (spiced up with a threat of a 100 million dollar lawsuit) by an attorney representing “over a dozen” celebrities to take down pictures of his clients which had been hacked from their respective iCloud accounts and published in different websites. Google quickly reacted removing those pictures from its blogging and social […]
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Internet Governance Forum and Internet Ungovernance Forum
The ninth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was held in Istanbul, Turkey, on 2-5 September. EDRi member Alternative Informatics Association (AIA) submitted four proposals to the IGF, but all of them were rejected. As a result, AIA decided to organise a parallel event, the Internet Ungovernance Forum (IUF). The IUF attracted considerable interest among Internet researchers and activists […]
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Open letter to Google’s Advisory Council on the “right to be forgotten”
On 9 September, European and international civil rights organisations submitted an open letter (pdf) to Google’s Advisory Council on their assessment of the so-called “right to be forgotten”. The groups urge the Council’s members to avoid inadvertently delaying the adoption of the data protection reform package. They remind the members of the urgent need for […]
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Google now supports AND opposes the “right to be forgotten”
In April 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled, unremarkably, that Google should amend search results that are unfair to individual users – if they are clearly out of date and irrelevant, for example. Google’s reaction was ferocious – it launched a major press campaign to try to undermine the legal basis for the ruling, […]
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