We knew the US (and other governments) were watching us, many politicians and engineers said after The Guardian and the Washington Post published information about the spy programme PRISM, which allows US agencies access to all of your whereabouts on the net.
The majority of the European Parliament welcomed the start of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – a EU-US free trade agreement - in a resolution released in Strasbourg on May 15. The Green Party wanted more conditions to avoid a potential degradation of European standards in data protection. European civil rights organisations warn against a mega-ACTA-like free trade agreement.
Until the early days of June, Apple still has time to appeal against a Court ruling that nobody expects the tech company can afford to accept. The Berlin Regional Court in April decided [PDF] Apple's data protection directives were illegal according to German law. Will Apple appeal the decision? Yes, says everybody except Apple itself.
For many years the internet address registry for Europe and the Middle East RIPE has managed a scarce resource: IPv4 addresses. Since September, IPv4 addresses have run out. At the 66th meeting of the RIPE community in Dublin this week, discussions addressed the question of whether the end of the IPv4 protocol should also mean abandoning the “needs based principle” in allocating addresses. If so, could this serve as a stepping-stone for the new IPv6 protocol?
About 1,000 internet policy specialists are currently discussing internet related issues at the 5th World Telecom Policy Conference in Geneva (WTPF). While only non-binding “opinions” on “internet related public policy issues” are on the agenda, the conference is seen as a stepping stone towards potential changes in the future mandate of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the role of governments in internet governance.
Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Portugal, France and recently The Netherlands and the UK have all allocated new spectrum in the 800 MegaHertz (MHz) band to providers of mobile broadband service, especially LTE (Long Term Evolution). Despite this new development, EU Commission Vice-President and Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes is not satisfied. Is her dissatisfaction justified?
In an April press release, Deutsche Telekom announced it would throttle IP traffic flows of its DSL customers once they cross certain data limits and to privilege their own and "partner" content at the same time. "Managed services will be delivered at a higher and guaranteed quality at an extra cost," a spokesman explained. This article looks at what's hidden behind "managed services".
With the growing tension between the cross-border internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions, it becomes crucial to keep track of key global trends that drive the debate on appropriate frameworks. Based on the 2012 monitoring work of the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, twelve high-level patterns can be identified. Paul Fehlinger of the I&J project reports.
In Europe, education and free knowledge are subject to political restrictions that can only be effectively changed on the EU level. Wikimedia, the not-for-profit organisation behind the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, believes this. The organisation could therefore soon open an office in Brussels to participate in the future debates about a European knowledge society. Nikolas Becker is a member of the board of Wikimedia Germany. Using three concise examples, he explains why and where he sees need for action.
Over the last few years, privacy has become a trending topic when it comes to the mobile internet. Mobile app developers and providers of app stores have increasingly been put under pressure by privacy advocates.