The European Commission's Communication on Cloud Computing (pdf) forecasts a spend of 45 billion Euro on such services in the EU in 2020. The stakes are therefore huge for the countries and regions that can show themselves to be trustworthy for the processing of both personal and business data.

With no comprehensive federal privacy legislation and spying measures like the PATRIOT Act and FISAAA in place, the starting position of the US administration and industry is clearly very weak.

On 6 June 2013, European Commission Vice-President Vivane Reding responded to a letter sent to her two days earlier by Chris Grayling MP, UK Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. Her letter surgically dismantles the lobby-driven analysis of the data protection debate from the UK.

• Turkish demonstrations using social media despite censorship
• Neelie Kroes’ up-and-down evolution in the Net Neutrality issue
• Call for Action: Vote on the retention of air passenger data (PNR)
• Transborder data access: Strong critics on plans to extend CoE Cybercrime Treaty
• Macedonia: Freedom of expression endangered by new law
• Council of Europe to step up for Net Neutrality
• EDRi analysis on private copying levy
• Will the new data protection rules be even weaker than the old ones?
• EC goes after governments for not implementing data retention
• ENDitorial: Correction / Clarification regarding iCOMP
• Recommended Action
• Recommended Reading
• Agenda

First we had the US administration influencing the European Commission's drafting of privacy legislation, then we had the lobbying onslaught and the “lobbyplag” scandal. Now, we have absurd and misleading “studies” that make wild assumptions in order to come to outlandish conclusions regarding the “cost” of data protection. In the most recent example, the European Small Business Association launched a study on the alleged costs of the data protection reform at a breakfast (where, symbolically, no breakfast was served) in the European Parliament on 8 May.

The issue of the private copying levy that is imposed in some EU Member States has been discussed at EU level for years. So far, it has been impossible to find a solution. The debate is also part of the wider discussion on copyright and its adaptation to the digital age.

Last week, European Digital Rights attended the second annual Stockholm Internet Forum which focused on two main themes: Internet Freedom and Security and Internet Freedom and Development. A novelty this year were the Unconference sessions.

• EU privacy reform: What you can do now
• TTIP - a brief victory of hope over experience
• Protests against the Net Neutrality violation in Germany
• Complaints against Irish DPA's lack of action against Facebook
• Apple’s privacy policy breaches German data protection laws
• Russia ratifies CoE Convention 108 on data protection
• Germany: Google must remove autocomplete harmful searches if notified
• ENDitorial: European Privacy Association - good, bad or simply misunderstood?
• Recommended Action
• Recommended Reading
• Agenda

Last month, BEUC and EDRi sent a joint call for action to Vice-President Kroes in order to demand a stronger protection of network neutrality in Europe. We called on the Commission to put an end to the current experimentation by certain European access providers with blocking, filtering and throttling of services which are extremely harmful to both the economy and fundamental rights.

In her response dated 8 May, Neelie Kroes seems non-committal regarding the policy direction she will take in the upcoming recommendations. The extreme vagueness of the language may be an indication of heated internal discussions in the European Commission.