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Deutsch: Personenbezogene Daten: Ein Comicheft für junge Europäer
Information and communication technologies (telephone, Internet, emails, blogs and social networks) make daily life and relationships with our relatives, friends or even strangers easier. Young people and young adults make a particularly intense use of them. However, unless we are careful, they can lead us to hand over excessive amounts of our personal data, facilitating surveillance of our private lives. Protection of personal data is crucial for the respect for privacy. The European Union has established a legislative and regulatory framework which aims at ensuring the protection of citizens' personal data as one of their fundamental rights. What is the reality in practice and how can we protect ourselves on a daily basis?
The European project "Sensitization and information of young European citizens on the protection of their personal data" takes stock of the situation in nine EU countries (Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Romania, Spain and United Kingdom) and on the European legislation. This 18-month project started in January 2009 and is funded by the "Fundamental Rights and Citizenship" programme of the European Commission. It is coordinated by the French League of Human Rights (LDH), in partnership with the European Association for the Defense of Human Rights (AEDH), European Digital Rights (EDRi), the Czech association Iuridicum Remedium (IuRe) and the Spanish association Comunicació per a la Cooperació (Pangea). The project aims at raising citizens' awareness on the issue of privacy protection. Country reports, a comparative analysis of the various situations and an inventory of the legislation and practices in the EU are being produced for that purpose. They will come with recommendations to public authorities.
As for now, the project publicly releases a comic book "Under surveillance "it produced as an information and awareness tool for young adults.
Synopsis: In an unspecified European city, a group of young people works, studies, travels, publishes on forums and blogs, exchanges on social networks and meets at concerts... A "difficult" situation in the life of a young photo-journalist and his friends' mobilization to help him out of this situation illustrate the breaches of personal data protection facilitated by the use of new technologies. The comic book underlines the consequences but also possible remedies. A glossary and links to useful websites come with the comic book.
The comic book "Under surveillance" is available in Catalan, Czech, English and French. Online versions are made available on the project partners' websites. 20,000 hard copies are available in each language and are disseminated for free. AEDH and EDRI are disseminating the English versions. We invite organisations interested in contributing to this dissemination to get in touch with AEDH and EDRI. Those interested in the production of versions in other European languages must contact LDH, the project coordinator.
Contacts: EDRi (edrigram at edri dot org) AEDH (aedh at aedh dot eu) LDH (ldh at ldh-france dot org)
Press release: Personal data: a comic book to raise awareness among European young adults (7.04.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/Press-release-edri-comic-book-privacy-under-...
Données personnelles : une bande dessinée à destination des jeunes adultes européens pour prendre conscience, s’informer et se protéger au quotidien (only in French, 7.04.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/Communique-bande-dessinee-vie-privee-surveil...
Comic Book "Under Surveillance"
http://www.edri.org/files/Comic-Book-Under-surveillance-En.pdf
http://www.edri.org/files/Comic-Book-Cover-Under-surveillance-En.pdf
LDH France
http://www.ldh-france.org
EDRi
http://www.edri.org
AEDH
http://www.aedh.eu
IURE
http://www.iure.org
Pangea
http://www.pangea.org
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Deutsch: Europäische Kommission schlägt Netzsperren vor und verteidigt rechts...
On 29 March 2010, the European Commission re-launched its initiative on child exploitation. This initiative was originally launched in March 2009 as a "Framework Decision", but was withdrawn due to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty.
With regard to Internet blocking, there are two crucial differences between the new proposal and the one launched last year. Both changes were made in order to try to reduce the opposition to the proposal to introduce EU-wide Internet blocking, thereby creating the basis for a continent-wide censorship infrastructure.
Firstly, when the Commission launched its original proposal, the blocking measures would have required laws to be introduced in the Member States (as blocking would have been by judicial or police order). This is necessary in order for the measure to have any hope of being in compliance with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which states that "the exercise of these freedoms, (...) may be subject to such formalities, (...) as are prescribed by law." This need for a legal basis was confirmed in the otherwise rather empty impact assessment. "Such measures must indeed be subject to law, or they are illegal." On Commissioner Malmström's blog, her spokesperson repeatedly gives a preference for "voluntary" blocking.
In the Council of Ministers, Member States such as Sweden and the United Kingdom that already have "self-regulatory" "voluntary" blocking opposed this measure as they did not want to introduce laws.
As a result, the European Commission amended its proposal to simply require "measures" to be taken to bring about blocking - thereby avoiding the opposition of the countries who currently carry out blocking without a legal basis and facilitating the ongoing breach of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. As one of the first proposals of the new Commission - the Commission that will take the historical step of accession to the European Convention on Human Rights - this is a profoundly, crushingly disappointing, cynical and, above all, illiberal, move.
The second change was to create a vague and therefore legally unenforceable "obligation" on Member States to take the "necessary measures" to have the websites in question removed from the Internet. This measure duplicates a range of existing "binding" international obligations, such as those provided for in Article 34 of the UN Child Rights Convention. Would another vague and unenforceable obligation on Member States achieve anything? Well, not according to the European Commission, which argued (in its "impact assessment" of this proposal) that a Directive is necessary due to the lack of a " vigorous monitoring mechanism" in the Council of Europe Convention on child exploitation. This new text does, however, permit the Commission to argue that it is not promoting blocking (with its specific obligation) ahead of deletion of sites (with its vague and unenforceable obligation) but is working on both measures simultaneously.
Proposal for a Directive on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation
of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA
(29.03.2010)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0094:FI...
Impact assessment (25.03.2009)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SEC:2009:0355:FI...
Commissioner Malmström's blog (in Swedish and English) on this issue
(29.03.2010)
http://ceciliamalmstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/ett-slag-for-barnens-...
MOGiS (abuse survivors against internet blocking): Remove, don't block! -
Act, and don't look away!
http://mogis-verein.de/eu/
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Britische Digital Economy Bill: Im Eiltempo durch das Unterhaus
After several hours of debate on 6 April 2010 in an almost empty British House of Commons, the Digital Economy Bill was passed to the next stage. The final debate is today, 7 April 2010 and the vote is scheduled at around 9 PM.
The yesterday's debate in the UK Parliament "has shown under the glare of thousands of webcasts, just how shamefully it can behave", as Monica Horten underlines. The only major change of the text could be the Clause 18 regarding blocking of websites which would be subject to a "super-affirmative procedure". That would mean that it will be adopted separately by the Parliament at a later date. This was the deal reached by the three main parties in the present dissolving UK Parliament. However, the rest of the clauses on the three strikes will be probably passed following today's vote.
Some of the members of the Parliament complained by the fact that they had not seen the last version of Clause 18, one of the most controversial text in the Digital Economy Bill.. This clause was amended several times, one of its version apparently having been largely drafted by the music industry BPI. The amendment introduced by Business Secretary Peter Mandelson allowed ministers to introduce the power for courts to order ISPs to block access to websites or Internet locations allegedly infringing copyright. The new amendment introduced at the second reading grants the government "limited power to propose regulations in the future", including the blocking websites, after consultation with the industry.
Besides the already known opposition arguments, some of the MPs complained by the fact that the House of Commons was given too short a time to take a decision on the bill arguing that such a complex and controversial law should have been put under a more thorough scrutiny.
Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House of Commons, argued that the law was not rushed and suggested that there would still be opportunities to make changes after the bill had been approved which, in the opinion of some MPs, would never happen and the new government will just apply the bill as is.
The EDRi-member Open Rights Group and 38 Degrees have made big efforts to convince MPs to oppose the bill through a several actions including advertising in the Guardian and the Times headlined "20 684 of us demand a proper debate on the Digital Economy Bill", paid for by donations.
The Opens Rights Group has expressed its intention to continue the fight, even after the law was passed. On 1 April 2010, the Open Rights Group served "Disconnection notices" to UK Music, BPI and politicians. The group members went to the offices of the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties, BPI and UK Music and presented them "with notice that the Digital Economy Bill is disconnected, from democracy, human rights, public opinion and sound business sense. (...) We will continue to expose the lobbying and manipulation of corporate lobbyists and the irresponsibility of many politicians, in order to win our fight to defend our rights as citizens," said Jim Killock.
But with a hidden deal between the main parties, the bill is expected to be passed into law in a wash-up negotiating procedure before the dissolution of the Parliament. You can watch this live following the link below.
Webcast of the House of Commons debate on the Digital Economy Bill
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Live.aspx
Parliament does a squalid deal and betrays Internet users (6.04.2010)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&am...
Digital Economy Bill heads for final reading (7.04.2010)
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/regulation/2010/04/07/digital-economy-bill...
Government re-introduces controversial site-blocking powers (31.03.2010)
http://www.out-law.com:80//default.aspx?page=10890
How Hollywood lobbied for the Digital Economy Bill (3.04.2010)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&am...
Disconnection notices served to UK Music, BPI and politicians (3.04.2010)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/disconnection-notices-served
Call for 'fuller' debate on Digital Economy Bill (6.04.2010)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8603285.stm
EDRi-gram: UK is one step closer to blocking access to Internet (24.03.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.6/uk-disconnection-law
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Deutsch: Neue Medien, Suchmaschinen und Netzneutralität auf der Tagesordnung d...
The Council of Europe (CoE) Committee of experts on new media (MC-NM) held its second meeting on 25-26 March 2010 in Strasbourg. This group is a follow-up to the previous CoE Group of specialists on Human Rights in the Information Society (MC-S-IS), which 5 years mandate expired end 2008, and to which EDRI was an observer.
The new architecture of CoE Media and Information Society Division working groups includes this MC-NM Committee and 3 Ad hoc advisory groups on, respectively: Public Service Media Governance (MC-S-PG), Cross-border Internet (MC-S-CI), and the Protection of Neighbouring Rights of Broadcasting Organisations (MC-S-NR). All 4 groups mandate ends on December 2010. EDRi applied for and was granted observer status to MC-NM, MC-S-CI and MC-S-NR.
MC-NR definition is similar to that of former MC-S-IS: the group is made up of representative of member States and of observers. Its Chair is Thomas Schneider (Switzerland) and Vice-Chair is Michael Truppe (Austria), in continuity with MC-S-IS situation. The main change relies in the terms of reference, focusing on new media.
The group is thus exploring the challenges to human rights, especially to the right to freedom of expression and to privacy, with social network services (SNS) and search engines, and working on CoE Recommendations to member States in order to protect and promote these rights. Guidelines to other stakeholders, especially the providers of these services, will complement the Recommendations.
MC-NM is at the same time addressing the new notion of media, in order to examine whether the understanding of media and mass communication services remains valid in the new information and communications environment: the challenges here relate to issues such as defining online journalism, ensuring freedom of expression, freedom of the press, democracy and pluralism, etc.
Considering the challenges to human rights, democracy and the rule of law raised by the network neutrality discussions in many member and non member States, as well as at the EU level and in international fora, such as the Internet governance forum, the MC-NM group has also decided to explore the network neutrality issue in order for the CoE to take a stand in this hot debate.
The second MC-NM meeting was busy with examining three draft Recommendations on, respectively, the definition of new media, on SNS and on search engines, prepared by ad hoc subgroups.
The first document still needs to take into account a variety of intermediary actors, such as news aggregators, that introduce main challenges to a revised definition of media in that they drastically change the media landscape. The criteria defining a media also need to be further explored: while the chosen approach to focus on media functions rather than on media actors is right from a methodological point of view, the draft doesn't show, at this step, a fair account of new functions. Moreover, a self-definition of media by the 'intention' to act as a media might prove not adequate, and the factors determining the level of impact of a given media also need further examination. From EDRi's point of view, the notion of editorial function is particularly missing in this definition, while it is crucial to define the role as well as the rights and responsibilities of the given media with respect to human rights, democracy, and freedom of the press. A new version of the draft Recommendation, taking into account the discussion, will be submitted to the group at its next meeting.
The draft Recommendations and guidelines on social networks and search engines both focus on the transparency issue with regards to the conditions and terms of services as well as the decisions made by the service provider, taking into account the impact they could have on the user's rights, especially freedom of expression and privacy. They stress the need for media literacy for a responsible use of these services. They also insist on measures to ensure users' control over their data. The draft text on search engines is particularly welcome with this regard, especially since it builds on the works of the EU Article 29 Working Group on the protection of personal data.
EDRi underlined that the draft recommendation on search engines is also most welcome when it addresses the issue of transparency of ownership and the challenges of concentration in this sector. It stressed the need to further address full transparency in the presentation of search results, clearly identifying and separating sponsored results from non sponsored ones, as this has a direct impact on freedom of expression but also on democracy and the diversity of opinions. While acknowledging that there could not be pure 'neutral search', since search algorithms obviously use criteria which as business method remain undisclosed, EDRi advocated to recommend the availability of a 'default search mode' for users who disagree on their search history being kept and further used to 'improve' their search results. This 'default search mode' should be considered as the equivalent of 'default parameter settings', which exist and are recommended in view of better privacy protection by various services. Furthermore, noting the essential role of search engines which are even replacing direct URL requests for a large amount of users, EDRi started a discussion on recommending governments to explore ways of funding public service, public interest search engine, using free and open source software. While opinions are mixed in the group on this issue, this might at least end with a recommendation to promote alternatives in such a sector where a single actor dominates the market.
Both draft recommendations also address the tricky issue of content regulation, in terms of filtering and blocking content, as well as in terms of self- and co-regulation. Pointing the numerous risks of content blocking with respect to human rights, democracy and the rule of law, EDRi insisted that content should be dealt with at source, if needs be and in full compliance with European human rights instruments. In addition, for the specific case of search engines, there shouldn't be any filtering or blocking process recommended, as this would be a second level of filtering or blocking content. Generally speaking, EDRi underlined that the language used in both Recommendations should not legitimize any blocking process, and should make clear the centrality of freedom of expression, which only admit limited exceptions when they are necessary, proportionate and appropriate in a democratic society, and could by no mean be 'outweighed' by other rights.
The last examined document was a draft report on network neutrality. A fruitful discussion was introduced by expert guest Vladimir Radunovic (DiploFoundation's coordinator of the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme), who made an excellent, very pedagogical and complete presentation on the issue without neglecting any of its dimensions, contrarily to what unfortunately often happens in this debate. As a first result of this discussion and while MC-NM members intend to pursue their work in view of producing a network neutrality report, a draft Declaration of the CoE on network neutrality was prepared and discussed in view of its submission to the Committee of Ministers. A second round of comments by MC-NM members and observers will take place before end April.
Next meeting of the MC-NM group is scheduled in September 2010.
CoE MC-NM, MC-S-CI and MC-S-NR public websites
http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media
EDRi-gram: ENDitorial: Undead WIPO treaty resurrected in Council of Europe
(10.02.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.3/broadcasting-treaty-council-of-...
(Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, French EDRI-member IRIS)
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Deutsch: Wirre Diskussionen im EP über die Durchsetzung geistiger Eigentumsrec...
The probably final set of discussions around the much-debated "Gallo Report" on the enforcement of intellectual property rights was held recently in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP).
In the week prior to the discussions, a study prepared for the International Chamber of Commerce had claimed that 185 000 jobs were lost as a result of intellectual property infringements in 2008 and this would rise to 1.2 million jobs by 2015. This was, unsurprisingly, seized upon by supporters of ever-stronger legislation on intellectual property infringements.
The study's methodology was heavily criticised by the Social Science Research Centre (SSRC), primarily for the assumption that domestic IPR infringement was a 100% loss to the economy and that the money saved by consumers through infringements would not be spent in the domestic economy and secondly that any losses would be 100% absorbed by European companies.
MEPs that supported the fact that the SSRC was making valid arguments were accused by Mme Gallo and by certain trade unions of claiming that intellectual property infringements were of no significance whatsoever.
Bearing in mind that the European Commission has allocated one million Euro (according the website of one of the participants) to the Counter Project for "exploring the consumption of counterfeit and pirated leisure goods" and half a million Euro for a separate study on the impact of intellectual property infringements, it is rather surprising that the MEPs who believe that the International Chamber of Commerce study is credible are not complaining at the apparent waste of money on further research.
Over the coming week, compromise amendments may be prepared by the political groups, in advance of the Committee vote. However, it seems likely at this stage that the Legal Affairs Committee may adopt a report which is at odds with other recent decisions of the Parliament (such as in the telecoms package), which will necessitate an alternative resolution being put to the full plenary session in May. The outcome of that vote will inform the Commission's thinking as to the limits of its possible ambitions for the future Directive on criminal sanctions for IPR infringements.
International Chamber of Commerce: Building a Digital Economy: The
Importance of Saving Jobs in the EU's Creative Industries
http://www.iccwbo.org/bascap/id35360/index.html
SSRC - Piracy and Jobs in Europe (22.03.2010)
http://blogs.ssrc.org/datadrip/?p=176
Counter project
http://www.counter2010.org/
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Definition der Open Standards in der Digital Agenda der EU
Several French NGOs such as APRIL (the Association for the promotion and defence of free software)and the consumer group UFC-Que Choisir have recently voiced their worries related to the wording on open standards in the Digital Agenda for Europe to be issued on 27 April 2010 by Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner in charge with digital issues.
For some years now, the European Commission has made efforts to promote interoperability and open source software. The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) issued in 2004 supported Open Source Software (OSS) giving a clear definition of open standards: "To attain interoperability in the context of pan-European eGovernment services, guidance needs to focus on open standards. The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard:
The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard."
However, a new working version of EIF was leaked in November 2009 showing a strange definition of openness: " There are varying degrees of openness. At one end of the spectrum are specifications andsoftware promoting collaboration, that can be freely accessed, reused and shared and that are considered open. At the other end non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions. What lies in-between the two ends can be called 'openness continuum'."
Letters have been sent to the European Commission by APRIL and UFC-Que Choisir showing concerns related to the evolution of EIF and the pressure that is apparently put on commissioner Kroes by Microsoft for the deletion of open standards and even interoperability from the document.
The last day of March was also celebrated in several places in Europe as the Document Freedom Day. Activities organized by volunteers in Austria, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Romania or Moldova completed the day of grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of Open Document Formats and Open Standards in general.
It remains to be seen whether these voices will be heard and see how the new version of EIF will look like at the end of this month.
After APRIL, UFC-Que Choisir asks the European Commission to respect the
"free" (only in French, 2.04.2010)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/15424-apres-l-april-l-ufc-que-choisir...
APRIL questions the European Commission on the future of "free" in Europe
(only in French, 30.03.2010)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/15389-l-april-interpelle-la-commissio...
European Commissiion Communication - A Digital Agenda for Europe - A policy
for smart growth and innovation in a digital society
http://dl.free.fr/getfile.pl?file=/igG3lfFm
Open Source and Open Standards under Threat in Europe (03.2010)
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2878&...
Document Freedom Day (31.03.2010)
http://www.documentfreedom.org/Main_Page
EU: Threats to open source and interoperability (only in French,
26.03.2010)
http://www.pcinpact.com/actu/news/56095-nellies-kroes-agenda-politique...
European Interoperability Framework for European Public Services (EIF) -
Version 2.0 (28.11.2009)
http://www.bigwobber.nl/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/European-Interopera...
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Deutsch: Neue Nutzung offener Lizenzen durch die niederländische und britische...
Encouraging moves in promoting the open licence content in governmental projects have been recently made in the Netherlands and UK.
The Netherlands government launched on 31 March 2010 Rijksoverheid.nl, a single website for communications for all Dutch ministries, committing also to promote open sharing of public sector information. The content is available under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. Presently, there are 5 ministries active on this website and the rest of the ministries will be added during this year. This builds on previous research made by Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law- IViR on using Creative commons licensing for public sector information.
Another open content positive development comes from UK. For the first time in its 260 years of existence, Ordnance Survey, Britain's national mapping agency, offers now the possibility to download maps up to 1:10,000 scale, collect a list of locations appearing on maps at the 1:50,000 scale or get a conversion system for postcodes to grid references, free of charge for personal or commercial use. The initiative called OpenData was launched on 1 April 2010.
John Denham, the communities secretary stated that the initiative "shows the UK is at the cutting edge of a digital revolution. The move to free up public data encourages fresh thinking - people re-using information in different and more imaginative ways than may have originally been intended increasing access to Ordnance Survey data will attract a new wave of entrepreneurs and result in new solutions to old problems that will benefit us all. It will also drive a new industry, creating new jobs and driving future growth."
Until now, except for experimental small volume applications, every piece of map data had to be paid for. The change comes after a long period of lobbying efforts to promote open data from the UK government led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
The licensing terms for the maps have also been dropped, the new maps being offered now under a compatible CC licence requiring only the attribution of their origin.
"Our joint aim has been to make sure that the OS OpenDataTM licence terms and conditions correspond with those on data.gov.uk and that these terms are in line with the Government's commitment to establish a common licence to re-use data which is interoperable with the internationally recognised Creative Commons model" says an announcement of UK Office of Public Sector Information posted on the PerSpectIve blog.
New Dutch government portal uses CC0 public domain waiver as default
copyright status (31.03.2010)
http://creativecommons.org:80/weblog/entry/21473
Dutch National Government
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/english
Ordnance Survey launches free downloadable maps (1.04.2010)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/01/ordnance-survey-maps-...
Licensing and data.gov.uk - further developments (1.04.2010)
http://perspectives.opsi.gov.uk/2010/04/licensing-and-datagovuk-furthe...
IViR: Creative commons licensing for public sector information Opportunities
and pitfalls (01.2008)
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/images/2/2c/Creativecommons-licensing-...
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Kommissarin gibt der USA die Schuld an der wachsenden Zens...
In a blog post, Commissioner Malmström's press spokesman Love Berggren placed the blame for the perceived need to impose EU-wide blocking squarely at the feet of the governments in the USA, Russia and Ukraine. He said that "a check of the internet by hotlines in 35 countries recently found 144 web sites in the USA, Russia, Ukraine and other countries. One year later, a majority of the sites were still operating".
It is quite puzzling that the Commission has chosen to publicly criticise Russia and Ukraine in this context. There is widespread agreement that the problem of child abuse websites has decreased significantly in recent years in Russia and efforts are ongoing to address the problem there ever more effectively. This was partly to be attributed to efforts of former Commissioner Frattini for positive international engagement with Russia to remove the websites completely from the Internet rather than the new focus of blocking the sites while taking no new initiatives to take them offline.
Similarly, Ukraine has never appeared significantly on the reports of European hotlines with regard to child abuse images. However, and this may be an indicator of a wider strategy of the Commission, it has repeatedly been criticised with regard to intellectual property infringements.
The big question then is: why are the sites hosted in the USA not taken down? This is all the more surprising when it is precisely the USA in the ACTA negotiations that is pushing a "notice and takedown" regime for websites accused of infringing intellectual property - can the USA really be simultaneously pushing the world to delete alleged copyright-infringing websites and refusing to delete child abuse websites? What position has the US government taken with regard to the very serious accusation of Commissioner Malmström?
It does not come as a surprise that the "impact assessment" of the proposal which suggests blocking as a solution does not identify the nature of the problems that lead to child abuse websites being left online. After all, with a solution as populist as blocking, who needs to specify the problem?
Apparent location of child abuse websites and trends from 2007 to 2008 from
the Irish hotline
http://www.hotline.ie/annualreport/images/graphs/trends/compaysNT800w....
Proposal for a Directive on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation
of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA
(29.03.2010)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0094:FI...
Impact assessment (25.03.2009)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SEC:2009:0355:FI...
Commissioner Malmström's blog (in Swedish and English) on this issue
(29.03.2010)
http://ceciliamalmstrom.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/ett-slag-for-barnens-...
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Mitmachen!
Draft Open letter to the participants of the ACTA negotiations
Comments accepted by the evening of 8 April 2010
http://bollow.ch/Open_Letter
Do you purchase fake goods? Do you download music and films from the
Internet? We would like to hear your views on counterfeit goods and online
piracy! Click below to participate in the Counter Consumer Survey!
http://www.counter2010.org/countersurvey.html
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
Monica Horten: Internet SOS - 3-part lay person's guide to the UK's Digital
Economy Bill (30-31.03.2010)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcat...
The Economic and Social Role of Internet Intermediaries (04.2010)
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/49/4/44949023.pdf
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Agenda
12-13 April 2010, Oxford, UK
4th PrivacyOS Conference
https://www.privacyos.eu/archives/98-Invitation-4th-PrivacyOS-Conferen...
14-16 April 2010, Berlin, Germany
re:publica'10 - Conference about blogs, social media and the digital society
http://www.re-publica.de/10
14-18 April 2010, Madrid, Spain
Campus Party Europe - Technology, creativity and digital culture online
http://www.campus-party.eu
19-20 April 2010, Istanbul, Turkey
8th Communia Workshop - Education and the Public Domain: The Emergence of a
Shared Educational Commons
http://www.communia-project.eu/ws08
24 April 2010, London, United Kingdom
Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2010
http://www.okfn.org/okcon/
29-30 April 2010, Madrid, Spain (and many hubs for remote participation)
EuroDIG 2010
http://www.eurodig.org/
6-7 May 2010, Krems, Austria
4th International Conference on eDemocracy 2010
http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/department/gpa/telematik/veranstaltungen...
26-28 May 2010, Amsterdam, Netherlands
World Congress on Information Technology
http://www.wcit2010.com/
30-31 May 2010, Montreal, Canada
Third International Workshop on Global Internet Governance: An
Interdisciplinary Research Field in Construction
http://giga-net.org/page/2010-international-workshop
8-9 June 2010 - Funchal, Portugal
4th International Workshop on RFID Technology - Concepts, Applications,
Challenges - IWRT 2010
http://www.iceis.org/Workshops/iwrt/iwrt2010-cfp.htm.
25-27 June 2010, Cluj, Romania
Networking Democracy?
New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics
http://www.brisc.info/NetDem/
28-30 June 2010, Torino, Italy
COMMUNIA 2010 Conference: University and Cyberspace
Reshaping Knowledge Institutions for the Networked Age
http://www.universities-and-cyberspace.org
9-11 July 2010, Gdansk, Poland
Wikimedia 2010 - the 6th annual Wikimedia Conference
http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
25-31 July 2010, Meissen, Germany
European Summer School on Internet Governance
Call open until 15 May 2010.
http://www.euro-ssig.eu
29-31 July 2010, Freiburg, Germany
IADIS - International Conference ICT, Society and Human Beings 2010
http://www.ict-conf.org/
2-6 August 2010, Helsingborg, Sweden
Privacy and Identity Management for Life (PrimeLife/IFIP Summer School 2010)
CfP submission deadline: 2 May 2010
http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/
13-17 September 2010, Crete, Greece
Privacy and Security in the Future Internet
3rd Network and Information Security (NIS'10) Summer School
http://www.nis-summer-school.eu
28-31 October 2010, Barcelona, Spain
oXcars and Free Culture Forum 2010, the biggest free culture event of all time
3-5 November 2010, Barcelona, Spain
The Fifth International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in
IT Law. Call for papers deadline: 10 September 2010
http://www.lspi.net/
