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 Microsoft
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.
Facing fragmentation of digital space in the Snowden aftermath, this article considers regulatory models available to avoid the balkanisation of the internet.
Cyber attacks require distributed deterrence involving private and public actors. Can the classics of international law help?
This paper examines data and privacy governance by four China-based mobile applications and their international versions - including the role of the state. It also highlights the role of platforms in gatekeeping mobile app privacy standards.
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.
Ad archives are a novel tool in online advertising governance. They promise significant benefits, but only if their operators address key criticisms.
Do machines have morality? Should robots have rights? Which ethical guideline should we adopt to orient their advancement? In this paper we will discuss the main normative and ethical challenges imposed by the artificial intelligence context.
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 is part of Transnational materialities, a special issue of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by José van Dijck and Bernhard Rieder. Introduction Questions about how data is generated, collected and used have taken hold of public imagination in recent years, not least in relation to government. While the collection of data about populations has always been central to practices of governance, the digital era has placed increased emphasis on the politics of data in state-citizen relations and contemporary power dynamics. In part a continuation of long-standing processes of bureaucratisation, the turn to data-centric practices in government across Western democracies emerges out of …
Datafication (the quantification of social life) is a colonial move which perpetuates a legacy of appropriation. But how to regulate this?
What are the informal arrangements governing online content on platforms in Europe, and what are the factors that make them more or less successful?
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.
Zero rating has emerged as one of the most contentious communications policy debates of the last decade. The offer of ‘free’ access to select applications compromises network neutrality, at the same time as it can present advantages to users with limited economic resources. How can we attempt to reconcile these conflicting dimensions of zero rating?
The countering of terrorism propaganda online, through private companies, may little by little kill our right to freedom of expression.
This paper analyses social media blocking in Brazil, as a consequence of "regulatory disruption".
Given the weakness of consent-dependent agreements in relation to profiling and prediction markets, consumer protection needs improvement.
The importance of personal data for the digital economy accentuates a problematic information asymmetry between consumers and the data-driven market players. An increased consumer protection would have to deal with the lack of transparency of this black-box setup and a flawed use of consent as regulatory model. The consumer protection needs to be improved in practice, in its implementation, not only in its policy.
This paper provides qualitative analysis of Google’s and Microsoft’s policies and examines case studies to enhance understanding about the privacy role of information intermediaries in self-regulatory arrangements.