skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Back in December, we wrote about a legal action that a group of digital
rights activists had brought against GCHQ, alleging that the UK's mass
online surveillance programs have breached the privacy
of tens of millions of people across the UK and Europe. In an
unexpected turn of events, the court involved -- the European Court of
Human Rights -- has put the case in the fast lane:
On
Techdirt.
The battle over online privacy, and how personal data should be treated
as it moves over the Internet, is being fought between the US and EU
points of view in multiple ways. There is the EU's Data Protection
Regulation, currently grinding its way through the legislative process;
there are the discussions about the NSA's spying program, and how it
impacts Europeans; and finally, there are various court cases involving
US companies and the personal data of EU citizens. One of these is in
the UK, where The Telegraph reports that an important decision has been handed down:
On
Techdirt.
Back in May last year, we wrote about how the European Commission's "Licences for Europe" initiative had turned into a fiasco,
with public interest groups and open access supporters pulling out in
protest at the way it was being conducted. The central problem was the
Commission's attempt to force everything into the straitjacket of
copyright licensing, refusing to allow alternative approaches to be
discussed. Fortunately, its public consultation on copyright, launched back in December, and closing soon, does not make this mistake, and is broad in scope:
On
Techdirt.