News and Research articles on GermanyGermany’s largest telecommunications operator for the first time on 5 May 2014 published a ‘transparency report’ on surveillance requests by German authorities. Kirsten Gollatz reveals how this new statitical input fits into the larger picture.
The District Court of Munich ruled on February 25 that YouTube cannot blame German royalty collecting society GEMA for content blocked on its platform.
Early warnings by German government officials at the Munich Security Conference proved true. On February 3, the International League of Human Rights in Germany, together with the Chaos Computer Club and civic group digitalcourage filed a criminal complaint against the German government for not acting on the mass surveillance by intelligence services.
“Digital” is written big in the coalition agreement, which was signed to give way to the new German government. Will this propell Germany onto the front seat in international internet politics.
Currently dominant cloud services raise challenges in terms of security, privacy and user autonomy. Decentralisation, advocated by civil society, may overcome some of the drawbacks.
The system of national collecting societies provided a relatively stable framework for licensing musical works – until the internet changed the field of music distribution. The GEMA-Youtube case serves as a starting point to discuss the future of collective copyright management.
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.
Fans who engage in the subtitling of motion pictures have been prosecuted on several occasions. A recent case in Sweden results in yet another discussion: do the actions of fans violate copyright?
The 4th generation mobile or LTE network coverage in the European Union looks like a patchwork blanket. Reasons for the different speeds in building and offering the newest mobile broadband network vary, and as Monika Ermert finds out, business analysts simply cannot agree.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Do users care about privacy? And if so: Will legal assurances help? Dr. Hanna Krasnova and Paula Kift summarize the findings of their quantitative study recently conducted among German students.