Internet companies are conduits through which states can exercise their authority beyond their borders. As Chinese companies such as Huawei become more commercially dominant, they threaten the geopolitical power of the US.
News and Research articles on European Union
The percentages and figures used in the impact assessment accompanying the European Commission’s e-evidence package strongly influence the analysis of the problem and limit the assessment of the problem of cross-border access to e-evidence to technical and efficiency considerations.
The internet is a forum for geopolitical struggle as states wield power beyond their terrestrial territorial borders through the extraterritorial geographies of data flows. This exertion of power across multiple jurisdictions, and via the infrastructure of transnational technology companies, creates new challenges for traditional forms of regulatory governance and the protection of human rights.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Recital 23 brought an obligation to all companies that receive, control or process personal data of European Union (EU) residents to comply with the minimal safeguards stated in European legislation.
Can platforms delete whatever content they want? Not everywhere, say the authors of this paper, which shows why certain social networks ‘must carry’ some content – and how users in some jurisdictions can force the companies to allow them into their communicative space.
Introduction: transparency in AI Transparency is indeed a multifaceted concept used by various disciplines (Margetts, 2011; Hood, 2006). Recently, it has gone through a resurgence with regards to contemporary discourses around artificial intelligence (AI). For example, the ethical guidelines published by the EU Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI (AI HLEG) in April 2019 states transparency as one of seven key requirements for the realisation of ‘trustworthy AI’, which also has made its clear mark in the Commission’s white paper on AI, published in February 2020. In fact, “transparency” is the single most common, and one of the key five principles emphasised in the vast number – a …
The COVID-19 pandemic represents the most urgent situation in relation to both disinformation and misinformation since the establishment of European Union’s 2018 codes of practice on disinformation. Pressure to change the regulatory framework is growing.
Targeted political advertising can potentially exclude voter segments from important political information, and undermine the democratic process
This article looks at the basis for use- or content-related takedown of domain names in the terms of services of 30 European country-code top-level domain names.
Management of the internet by the principle of the multistakeholder governance model has survived attempts of replacing it with inter-government management. What additional principles are useful to guide global internet governance and enhance ICANN’s legitimacy, seen in light of recent challenges? Are the disagreements over global internet governance also about diverging understandings of the goals in internet governance?
Information and communication technologies allow tax administrations to gather and process large amounts of data in order to individuate tax evaders. However, how to strike a balance between privacy rights and tax compliance?
Ad archives are a novel tool in online advertising governance. They promise significant benefits, but only if their operators address key criticisms.
This paper is part of Transnational materialities, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by José van Dijck and Bernhard Rieder. Introduction In March 2019, the European Commission fined Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. 1.5 billion euro for antitrust violations in the online advertising market—the third fine in three years. In July 2018, European Commissioner Margrethe Vestager had levied a record fine of 4.3 billion euro on Google for breaching European competition rules by forcing cell phone manufacturers to pre-install a dozen of the firms’ apps when using Android—Google’s mobile operating system. And in 2016, the company was punished for unlawfully favouring Google …
This paper examines data protection policies in Australia and Europe and outlines how both frameworks evoke different notions of citizenship.
Why did China’s Alibaba platform reform its enforcement practices in line with demands from the US government and US companies?
What are the informal arrangements governing online content on platforms in Europe, and what are the factors that make them more or less successful?
Net neutrality consultations that tap into networked publics rest on a thin version of participation that maintains existing inequality.
The German Network Enforcement Act is an attempt to counteract the effects of hate speech on social media platforms. This paper analyses and evaluates the reports on the handling of complaints about unlawful content after its coming into force.
This op-ed explores the malleable nature of power and authority in internet and blockchain technologies.
How do we construct and deliver data privacy rights? We discuss two recent Australian initiatives on regulation of digital platforms and a new consumer data right.