News and Research articles on France

Volume 2, Issue 3

Necessary and inherent limits to internet surveillance

Joss Wright, Oxford Internet Institute
PUBLISHED ON: 5 Aug 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.3.184

There are significant dangers in surveilling online communications unless the mechanisms and policies of surveillance are subject to strict and legally enforceable standards of transparency, oversight, and control.

KEYWORDS: Surveillance, Intelligence services, Base rate fallacy, Interception, Fundamental principles, Predictive algorithms, Privacy, Security, Content data, Communications data, Bundestrojaner, National Security Agency (NSA), PRISM, Tempora, Encryption, Liability, Transparency, Cyber security, Content, Censorship, Filtering
Volume 2, Issue 2

Taxing the cloud: introducing a new taxation system on data collection?

Primavera De Filippi, Research and Studies Center of Administrative Science (CERSA/CNRS), Université Paris II (Panthéon-Assas)
PUBLISHED ON: 1 May 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.2.124

Tax avoidance has become a widespread practice on the internet. Online operators easily circumvent an aging taxation scheme that is designed around the concept of territorial jurisdiction and geographical settings. The French government now commissioned a study to find out how to effectively deal with internet giants that generate hardly any revenue for states they largely operate in.

KEYWORDS: Taxing, Cloud services, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, France, Cloud, Cloud computing, Taxation, Fiscality, Data protection, Data collection
Volume 2, Issue 2

Internet filtering trends in liberal democracies: French and German regulatory debates

Joss Wright, Oxford Internet Institute
Yana Breindl, Georg-August Universität Göttingen
PUBLISHED ON: 26 Apr 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.2.122

Liberal democracies are increasingly considering internet filtering as a means to assert state control over online information exchanges. A variety of filtering techniques have been implemented in Western states to prevent access to certain content deemed harmful. This development poses a series of democratic and ethical questions, particularly when states introduce regulation mandating ISPs to block online content. A first version of this article was previously published at the FOCI'12 conference.

KEYWORDS: Censorship, Democracy, Self-regulation, Co-regulation, Regulation, Filtering
Open access

Wikimedia and the (political) meaning of free knowledge

Nikolas Becker, Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG)

PUBLISHED ON: 2 Apr 2013

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.

Volume 2, Issue 1

Foreign clouds in the European sky: how US laws affect the privacy of Europeans

Primavera De Filippi, Research and Studies Center of Administrative Science (CERSA/CNRS), Université Paris II (Panthéon-Assas)
PUBLISHED ON: 19 Mar 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.1.113

Cloud computing provides a large number of advantages to many internet users. Most of the perceived benefits are related to the concept of ubiquity, or the ability to access data from anywhere at any time, regardless of the device used. Yet, these benefits come at a cost. The widespread deployment of cloud computing services is source of growing concern as regards the fundamental rights of EU citizens.

KEYWORDS: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FISAA), USA Patriot Act, EU Data Protection Regulation, Data sovereignty, EU Cybersecurity Directive, Cloud services, Cloud