Feeling slighted by Google’s dominance in search? In Europe, you may soon be able to sue for damages. A new proposal published today by the European Commission proposes to spell out the details, and effectively make it easier and quicker, for consumers and businesses to sue large companies when they feel that they have been the victims of antitrust violations. These would sit on top of European… → Read More
The European Commission believes that, alongside the rise of smartphones, tablets and other TV replacements, by 2016 connected TVs could be used in the majority of European homes — up from around 40.4 million today. Today it released a Green Paper to lay the groundwork for how it might cope with that. To be clear, this is not a re-writing of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, the… → Read More
Another round of headaches for Chinese telecom equipment makers Huawei and ZTE–after previously facing scrutiny over security concerns in the U.S., the two companies are now being targeted by the European Commission. The European Union’s executive body is seeking to investigate Huawei and ZTE for undercutting European firms by receiving state subsidies, and wants the backing of EU states to move… → Read More
The EC has been banging the open data drum for a while now, launching its Open Data Strategy for Europe back in 2011. Today another step along the road to liberating government data across the region so that startups can get their hands on it: an EU committee has endorsed plans to modernise the 2003 public information directive to make all non-personal public sector info available for reuse. → Read More
The founders of some of Europe’s biggest technology startup hits — Skype, Rovio, Spotify, and Tuenti — along with key planks of the ecosystem, including accelerators SeedCamp and HackFwd, are throwing their weight behind the European Commission’s “Startup Europe” initiative being spearheaded by the out-spoken EC Vice President Neelie Kroes. → Read More
With hacking and malware on the rise, Europe is cracking down on cybersecurity: today the European Commission, working with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is launching a new cybersecurity strategy along with a proposed directive on how to implement it (both embedded below). Among other things, the directive calls for each member state of the EU to set… → Read More
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission gave Google a slap on the wrist after it concluded its antitrust investigation into the company’s business practices, but it looks like it may not get away that easily in Europe. The Financial Times reports that EU Competition Commissioner Joaqiun Almunia wants to “prevent Google distorting choices for consumers and taking business from rivals.” → Read More
We don’t often try to get the word out about conferences put on by other blogs here at TechCrunch, but we’re about to. Because reasons. Namely: 1) We, as TechCrunch, will probably never ever ever, ever ever host a European cloud-computing conference and someone sure as heck needs to. 2) The folks at Gigaom are our friends, particularly founder, thought leader and king of the kind of industry… → Read More
As part of an agreement with the European Commission in 2009, Microsoft was supposed to present Windows users with a choice of browsers. It turns out, however, that Microsoft quietly stopped showing this screen with the release of Windows 7 SP1 in February 2011. According to European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, this means 28 million users in the EU did not get to see this screen and… → Read More
The European Commission this morning announced that it has opened formal antitrust proceedings to investigate whether a number of international ebook publishers have engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in Europe, “possibly with the help of Apple” (which offers an e-book storefront called iBooks).
According to the press release, the opening of proceedings means… → Read More
In another example of Europe’s bureaucrats leaving themselves open to accusations that they’re meddling in issues that are best left to the marketplace, the European Commission has announced the launch of MOSQUITO (Mobile software and services, Standardisation, Quality, Interoperability, Testing, Open source), a €700,000 research project to “develop a better understanding of the issues and… → Read More
And so it begins. The European Commission this morning launched a consultation on key questions regarding the contentious issues of net neutrality and the open Internet.
The consultation covers such issues as whether ISPs should be allowed to adopt traffic management practices, prioritizing one kind of Internet traffic over another. This has become an issue with the onset of broadband and… → Read More
It’s official: the European Commission has granted regulatory approval for Oracle to acquire Sun Microsystems for approximately $7.4 billion, without further conditions. In a statement released moments ago, Oracle says it expects unconditional approval from China and Russia as well and intends to close the transaction shortly.
Oracle will host an all-day live event for customers, partners, press… → Read More
Oh, Europe. It seems the European Commission is still trying to figure out if it wants to impose a customs duty of up to 14 percent (a tax, essentially) on imported multifunction devices, most notably cellphones. While such a move may be beneficial to European Taxmen, it’s not exactly something that consumers, or non-European manufacturers, want to hear. Reason being, obviously, that… → Read More
The executive branch of the European Union is investigating whether wireless carriers there are illegally blocking VoIP calls from being carried over their networks. You know you can’t use Skype-like applications over 3G using your iPhone? If the Commission gets its way, that practice would end, one would assume. It’s like this: the European Commission doesn’t like it when… → Read More
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