Dominant tech companies make their products incompatible deliberately
Imagine buying a new dining table from IKEA and although it’s a great table, it can only be used with IKEA-made chairs. For security reasons, the furniture maker tells you, the table is incompatible with chairs from third party vendors, sorry. Sounds ridiculous? Welcome to today’s online platform economy.
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Dominant tech companies make their products incompatible deliberately
Imagine buying a new dining table from IKEA and although it’s a great table, it can only be used with IKEA-made chairs. For security reasons, the furniture maker tells you, the table is incompatible with chairs from third party vendors, sorry. Sounds ridiculous? Welcome to today’s online platform economy.
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Anonymity is indispensable
Would an anonymity ban on social media be a good solution to counter all the hatred on these platforms? We were asked this question by a national newspaper in response to such calls. Here is the reaction. of EDRi's member Bits of Freedom.
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Thousands Expected to Sue Facebook in Mass Action Against Privacy Breach
EDRi's member Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) will sue Facebook to recover damages for those affected by the recent breach of personal data by Facebook, a first for legal actions against tech companies in Europe. See how you can join the lawsuit if you were affected.
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Buy a phone, get a tracker: unauthorized tracking code illegally installed on Android phones
EDRi's member noyb launched further action against Google’s AAID (Android Advertising Identifier), following similar complaints against Apple’s IDFA. The somewhat hidden ID allows Google and all apps on the phone to track a user and combine information about online and mobile behaviour. While these trackers clearly require the users’ consent (as known from “cookie banners”), Google neglects this legal requirement. noyb therefore filed a complaint against Google’s tracking code AAID.
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Delete first, think later
The proposed Digital Services Act wants to push online platforms to quickly remove illegal content. But it uses a sledgehammer on a most intricate challenge: moderating online speech. The result would crush freedom of expression instead of enabling it. This is the second blog post in a new series dedicated to the EU’s proposed Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.
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Why Facebook’s proposed hate speech policy on Zionism would only add fuel to the fire
Pressured to combat surging hate speech and anti-Semitism on its platform, Facebook is looking into how it should moderate the use of the word “Zionist,” and whether to add the term as a protected category under its hate speech policy. EDRi's member Access Now doesn’t think that is a good idea, particularly given Facebook’s inability to strictly adhere to human rights principles in its content moderation practices.
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At a glance: Does the EU Digital Services Act protect freedom of expression?
The Digital Services Act is in many ways an ambitious piece of legislation that seeks to make ‘Big Tech’ accountable to public authorities through new significant transparency and due diligence obligations. It also contains many provisions that could help protect users’ fundamental rights. Whether it will be successful at protecting freedom of expression from undue restrictions or reining in the power of Big Tech rather than cementing it, is, however, questionable. EDRi's member ARTICLE 19 share its first thoughts on why.
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Italy proposes age verification and digital identities for accessing social media
EDRi member Hermes Center sheds light on the current case against TikTok in Italy, where three solutions are circulating on how to make sure that children will not access certain online contents unless supervised by their guardians.
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The Digital Markets Act must do more to protect end users’ rights
As the European Commission sets out plans for a Digital Markets Act, EDRi calls for the protection of users’ human rights to be at the centre of plans to regulate the role platform gatekeepers play in the future of Europe’s digital environment.
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How Big Tech maintains its dominance
As Big Tech deepens its dominance into new public domains, major issues arise around fundamental rights, democracy and justice. This article reflects the conversation that took place at the 2021 EPDS Civil Society Summit which was part of #PrivacyCamp21.
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#PrivacyCamp21: Event Summary
The theme of the 9th edition of Privacy Camp was "Digital rights for change: Reclaiming infrastructures, repairing the future" and included thirteen sessions on a variety of topics. The event was attended by 250 people. If you missed the event or want a reminder of what happened in the session, find the session summaries below.
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The Dating App “Grindr” to be fined almost € 10 Mio
On 26 January, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority upheld the complaints, confirming that Grindr did not recive valid consent from users in an advance notification. The Authority imposes a fine of 100 Mio NOK (€ 9.63 Mio or $ 11.69 Mio) on Grindr. An enormous fine, as Grindr only reported a profit of $ 31 Mio in 2019 - a third of which is now gone. EDRi member noyb assisted with writing the legal analysis and formal complaints.
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