News and Research articles on European Court of Justice (ECJ)

Recent case-law of the European Court of Justice has substantially widened the notion of “data controller" in unclear and potentially onerous ways for a range of actors involved in personal data processing. This has worrying implications for data subjects who may be characterised as controllers, and for emergent decentralised and privacy protective technologies.

Is reforming copyright law the appropriate solution to achieve the aims of the music industry? 

Content aggregation websites are the newest target of copyright enforcers. The 'kino.to court case' shows that ISPs hosting such websites are increasingly being drawn into the takedown battle.

In a recent high-profile court case on data protection and freedom of expression, the European Court of Justice has forgotten that publicness needs to be protected from privatisation, argues Lorena Jaume-Palasi.

The European Union’s Court of Justice has ruled against Google in a case in which a Spanish citizen, backed by his national data protection authority, wanted the company to remove search links to an old local newspaper story related to his bankruptcy. Jef Ausloos argues that implications should not be too extreme, but warns of the Court’s prioritising of data subjects over internet users. 

On April 8, the European Court of Justice made a clear decision invalidating the EU data retention directive. Legal scholar Sebastian Leuschner hits the floor running with an op-ed on what this landmark decision means for national data retention laws.

How can the European Union react to the revelations of mass collection of personal data by domestic or third country spying agencies? Researcher Carlo Piltz discusses the hot topic and proposes a way ahead.