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
Google this week fired off one of the first high-profile tests of Russia’s controversial new firewall — erected November 1, 2012 to block child porn, drugs and suicide content; but seen by critics as a route for the government to block whatever else it chooses. Google’s YouTube operation in Russia has filed an appeal against the Russian regulator for blocking YouTube content. The appeal, filed on… → Read More
The European Union today became the latest official body to back an open Internet, ahead of a important United Nations meeting to update Internet and telecoms regulation for the first time in 24 years. The International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency, is meeting in December in Dubai for the World Conference On International Telecommunications to revise the International Telecommunication… → Read More
Today, the dark day Syria shut down its Internet, web freedom should be at the very forefront of all of our minds. Web freedom was also center stage earlier this week when Stanford Law School hosted an event called “Sticky WCIT: Is This The End Of The Internet.” I asked several of the experts attending the event whether a WCIT meeting next week in Dubai might be a big threat to the free flow of… → Read More
Authorities in Europe today kicked off a fresh wave of scrutiny over Google’s privacy policy and called for changes to be made in how Google manages user data, describing Google’s scope as “too large”. But they also stopped short of saying Google is acting illegally in how it manages privacy or demanding a change in its wider policy. France’s data protection authority, the Commission Nationale de… → Read More
Up to now, the European Commission has kept a relatively light position on where it stands with cloud services — putting more effort into the wider issues like broadband and mobile regulation and ensuring that users all get a fair deal as these services continue to grow. Today that changed, as the EC unveiled a high-level cloud services strategy, with the aim of adding €160 billion ($206… → Read More
Earlier today European regulators collectively scored a victory for privacy when the Irish Data Protection Commissioner revealed it had managed to get Facebook to drop all facial recognition activity on its platform, as part of a wider investigation and process to get Facebook more in line with EU regulations on data protection and consumer transparency — most of which Facebook appears to have… → Read More
The ongoing investigation into Facebook’s transparency on user data and privacy by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner has come to a positive conclusion for the social network. The DPC, whose decisions had wider-ranging implications for all of Facebook’s business in Europe, had made several recommendations earlier in the year to bring Facebook’s policies in line with that of data protection… → Read More
Carriers are fiercely competitive, but swallowing their territorial tendencies, several around Europe have started teaming up to share mobile spectrum and other resources in the ongoing race to serve hungry mobile consumers with data for their apps, video chats and film streams — expected soon to top 1 trillion megabytes of data per month. Today the EU took a step towards formalizing that, with… → Read More
Facebook has today moved one step closer in its proposed acquisition of photo-sharing app Instagram. The Office of Fair Trading in the UK has given the deal the all-clear.
The announcement was made via an RNS regulatory statement, which briefly says the OFT would not refer the deal to the Competition Commission. A spokesperson for the OFT has given us more detail: → Read More
It’s been a very long time coming, but the UK regulator Ofcom has finally revealed plans for the auction of 4G spectrum, which means that by late next year the UK may, finally, start to see a commercial rollout of 4G services like LTE. Bidding in the auction, for spectrum in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands, is likely to start in early 2013. It will be the largest-ever spectrum auction in the… → Read More
A big day today for those who have been opposed to measures like SOPA that are aimed at stronger, government-imposed measures to define and prevent counterfeiting and copyright infringement on the internet: the European Parliament has rejected the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), by a nearly-unanimous margin of 478 votes against to 39 in favor.
The rejection means that the European… → Read More
With Europe preparing for a big vote next week on ACTA, the sweeping online copyright and counterfeit trade treaty, today the UK regulator Ofcom set out a proposal for how large ISPs in this country (ie more than 400,000) should tell their users when they’ve been found to be infringing on copyright — illegal activity that the government estimates costs the industry up to £400 million per year in… → Read More
Google has overcome two big regulatory hurdles in getting its $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility approved by both U.S. and European regulators. China now has until March 20 to decide whether or not it will wave through the deal, too.
Now, China’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau is now reviewing the deal — a routine part of the procedure for companies that make more than 400 million yuan ($63… → Read More
More developments in the absolutely gripping California Energy Commission vs The World drama. The CEC has delayed a meeting wherein it was to discuss the possible implementation of a ban of sorts on the sale of energy-hogging televisions. The Consumer Electronics Agency (it organizes CES every year) has been fighting against the measure, arguing that any such regulation would necessarily raise TV… → Read More
[UK] This is a guest post by communications specialist Antony Mayfield (twitter: amayfield) about C&binet Forum, the trendily named three day conference this week featuring the great and the good from the UK’s political, media and ‘creative’ industries. This ‘creative business conference’ was run by the Department for Culture Media and Sport, as a result of their joint publication (with the… → Read More
The Big Deal yesterday was the FCC’s announcement of two additional proposals to its enforcement of Net Neutrality: non-discrimination (ISPs can’t play favorites when it comes to network traffic), and transparent management (ISPs should be upfront with their network management practices, like blocking BitTorrent during peak hours). That’s all well and good—I don’t think you’ll find anyone… → Read More
Here’s one for you tin foil-wearing privacy advocates. (God bless you, but constantly being attuned to The Man watching your every move must be exhausting.) The Federal Trade Commission has set up a whole slew of new suggestions—not quite regulations, then—for Web sites in order to make their privacy policies more clear, and to regulate (without actually regulating) how they gather… → Read More
Bloomberg reports that Canada’s Prime Minister will be allowing telecoms industry regulators to “ban fees for unsolicited text messages on mobile phones and other ‘unfair charges.’” While that seems like a pretty narrow scope, consider that (with history as a guide) “unfair charges” is an extremely flexible term. It could spell the end of outrageous… → Read More
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