EU approves controversial copyright law that ‘could kill off the web’s user-generated content’

The European Parliament has approved a controversial copyright law that threatens to ‘destroy the internet as we know it’, according to digital rights groups. Yesterday, in a vote that split almost every major EU party, Members of the European Parliament adopted every terrible proposal in the new Copyright Directive and rejected every good one, setting the …

UK Regulator fines Facebook $660,000 for Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook is to be fined £500,000, the maximum amount possible, for its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the information commissioner has announced. The fine is for two breaches of the Data Protection Act. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) concluded that Facebook failed to safeguard its users’ information and that it failed to be transparent …

ICANN appeals to Article 29 Working Party for GDPR Enforcement Moratorium hits a snag

ICANN’s begging spree trip to Brussels this week with the European Union’s data protection authorities (DPAs) failed to secure a moratorium to delay the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implementation. In what is seen as a predictable ICANN-style self-inflicted harm, the organization is now left with less than 30 days to find a solution to …

EU Scoffs at Facebook, Sorry simply is not enough

“A multi-billion dollar social media platform saying it is sorry simply is not enough,” Andrea Jelinek, chair of the group of EU data protection authorities, said in a statement on Thursday. Facebook has ben faced with touch choices and a resulting congressional appearance after it was revealed that billions of data were used illegally by …

Facebook stops use of WhatsApp metadata for ads in Europe for privacy backlash

Following its pausing of the use of WhatsApp data in the UK, Facebook has stopped using data taken from its messaging service for advertising across Europe. The social network had come under pressure from the pan-European data protection agency group, the Article 29 Working Party in October. The group of privacy watchdogs said it had …

Finnish F-Secure Signs MOU European Union’s Europol to curb cyber crime

On 28 April 2016 Europol’s Cybercrime Centre (EC3) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the online security company F-Secure Corporation at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. F-Secure has 20 country offices and a presence in more than 100 countries, with Security Lab operations in Helsinki, Finland and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Through more than …

Data Transfer Pact Between U.S. and Europe declared Invalid by EU Court

Europe’s highest court on Tuesday struck down an international agreement that allowed companies to move digital information like people’s web search histories and social media updates between the European Union and the United States. The decision left the international operations of companies like Google and Facebook in a sort of legal limbo even as their …