"Lobbying is fierce” against a European Commission proposal for new privacy rules, said Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Commissioner Viviane Reding at a Thursday press briefing. Her proposed regulation, which calls for a single data protection law covering the whole EU, would help boost the confidence of users who want to shop online and use new technologies, she said. The measure would stimulate Europe’s digital economy to the tune of a 4 percent rise in the EU gross domestic product by 2020, she said. The plan also calls for a digital “right to be forgotten.” One reason the EC wants one rule for one continent is the discrimination that European companies, mainly German, feel on the European digital market, she said. Such companies consider it unfair when other big Internet players don’t have to abide by the same rules, she said. The basis of the proposed data protection regulation is to put European companies on the same footing as those elsewhere and to increase user protection, she said. But while European companies generally accept the proposal, acceptance by non-European organizations is “limited,” and opponents are lobbying wildly, she said. European Parliament members writing reports that respond to the proposal are suffering, because instead of being able to focus on drafting text, they have to respond to lobbyists, she said. Reding said she doesn’t oppose lobbying but it “can be overdone.” She suggested opponents would be better off investing in new business models to give consumers more confidence online than in spending money on lobbying. Reding was asked whether European’s stricter approach to data privacy might conflict with the U.S.’s more industry-led stance. Europe is the world’s largest economy, a continent of 500 million people, she said. It abides by the rules of treaties and the charter of fundamental human rights, she said. Anyone who wants to take advantage of the EU’s huge internal market “has to abide by our laws.” Europe already has data protection laws, and is just adapting them to the modern world, she said. That will set a gold standard for others to follow, she said. Asked if the proposal is in the right hands given that Ireland, which takes over the EU Presidency in January, may have a more relaxed approach to privacy, Reding said she has experienced several Irish Presidencies. The country’s prime minister says data protection will be a priority during this term, and “I take it seriously,” she said. The EC meets next week with the Council of Ministers, and Ireland hopes to finalize the process before next summer, she said.
Dugie Standeford
Dugie Standeford, European Correspondent, Communications Daily and Privacy Daily, is a former lawyer. She joined Warren Communications News in 2000 to report on internet policy and regulation. In 2003 she moved to the U.K. and since then has covered European telecommunications issues. She previously covered the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and intellectual property law matters. She has a degree in psychology from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law.
The European Parliament was to vote Thursday on resolutions aimed at pressuring governments not to yield to attempts by some countries to regulate the Internet through changes to the ITU’s International Telecom Regulations (ITRs). The Council of Ministers is preparing its position for the December World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai, a position that will be adopted sometime before Nov. 29, an EU diplomatic source told us. Governments are fully committed to ensuring that the WCIT outcome aligns with EU law and its digital agenda, Cypriot Justice and Public Order Minister Louca Loucas told Parliament members during a Tuesday evening debate in the Legal Affairs Committee. The council is “fully determined to defend the EU interest in Dubai,” he said. Nevertheless, lawmakers said they're worried European values will fall victim to governments seeking a stronger voice on the Internet.
Although fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is capable of meeting the EU’s ambitious digital agenda targets, it has had limited rollout so far because of its challenging business case, DotEcon analysts said Monday on an FTTH Council Europe regulatory policy webinar. The EU wants 50 percent of households to have broadband speeds of over 100 Mbps by 2020, but, with only 2 percent having access to such speeds now, meeting that goal is a long way off, said DotEcon economist Christian Koboldt. Europe also lags in FTTH deployment compared to other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, he said. The question is: with the public policy case for fiber so strong, why is the business case so difficult? The webinar discussion centered on an August DotEcon report (http://xrl.us/bnwm4x).
European Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes opposes a sending-party-pays provision in the ITU’s International Telecom Regulations (ITRs), she said in an Oct. 22 answer to a European Parliament question (http://xrl.us/bnvtv6). Judith Sargentini of the Netherlands and the Greens/European Free Alliance had asked what Kroes meant by “managed services,” and whether Internet search engines, video sites and social networks fall under the heading. Sargentini asked whether Internet content companies could sign contracts with ISPs for faster and better transmission of their data in exchange for payment of termination rates, and whether the European Commission perceived any danger that, in purchasing priority online, large and rich Web content companies could reduce the opportunities for smaller and new entrants. Sargentini also sought comment on the Dutch government’s objections to the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association’s contention that termination tariffs could hamper suppliers of services and applications from continuing to offer those services, and ETNO’s contention that an automatic deduction system in which costs are passed on through termination tariffs is likely to cause economically less efficient results than if tariffs are charged directly to end-users. The lawmaker also asked Kroes why the EC, in its proposal for the EU position at the upcoming World Conference on International Telecommunications, said nothing about net neutrality. Kroes replied that managed services provide access to applications and content with a certain quality of service level. ISPs may enter commercial agreements with content providers to ensure that technical properties of specific content or applications are controlled from end to end, she said. Some applications need a specific QoS level, such as Internet Protocol TV, VOD and business services such as virtual private networks, she said. Not all services referred to in the question need quality control, she said. E-communications operators should be able to market managed services, but to protect the Internet’s capacity to innovate, the provision of those services should not lower the quality of the “best effort” Internet, Kroes said. The EC is committed to maintaining the Internet as an open platform for innovation or all providers, she said. The EC backs the Dutch government’s position on ETNO’s proposal, she said. “Generally, the Commission believes that the ITRs are not the appropriate forum for setting compensation and tariff systems.” The EC proposal seeks to ensure that the scope of existing ITRs isn’t extended, especially with regard to Internet-related matters, Kroes said. The absence of any specific ITR provisions doesn’t prevent the EU from taking regulatory or legislative actions in that area, she said. The U.S., European countries and the EU have now explicitly nixed ETNO’s proposal, which appears to be supported only by repressive Arab and African regimes, European Internet Services Providers’ Association board member Innocenzo Genna wrote on his blog (http://xrl.us/bnvtwr). Remarkably, despite the opposition, the incumbents are moving ahead, he said. But the final shape of ETNO’s proposal remains unclear and the organization is reportedly considering its withdrawal (CD Oct 24 p5).
EU governments have apparently rejected a proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association (ETNO) to add a “sending-party-network-pays” provision to ITU international telecom regulations (ITRs). The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) met last week in Istanbul to firm up a common EU position before December’s ITU World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai. CEPT hasn’t made its position public yet, but European Internet Services Providers (EuroISPA) board member Innocenzo Genna wrote on his blog (http://xrl.us/bnu2vh) that informal sources have said the ETNO proposal is out. ETNO Communications and Public Policy Director Thierry Dieu, however, said he expects a final decision from CEPT next week. The U.S. has already rejected the proposal.
Work on a do-not-track (DNT) standard is running aground, EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes is to say Thursday in a speech to the Center for European Policy Studies. Standardization isn’t going according to plan, and Kroes is “increasingly concerned” about the delay and about the turn that discussions have taken in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), she is to say. There, the standard is apparently being watered down by the online advertising industry. Rachel Thomas, representing the Direct Marketing Association, proposed changing provisions on tracking definitions and compliance to allow marketing to be added to the list of “permitted uses for third parties and service providers” (http://xrl.us/bnteov), adding in a later post (http://xrl.us/bnteo5) that “Marketing fuels the world” and is “as American as apple pie.” DNT “should permit it as one of the most important values of civil society,” she wrote. Marketing as a permitted use would allow use of the data to send relevant offers to consumers, and the data could not be used for other purposes, she said. She urged the panel to use a “harm consideration” approach, saying ads and offers are just offers that consumers don’t have to respond to. Her proposal led Adobe Systems Principal Scientist Roy Fielding to write (http://xrl.us/bntepw) that “raising issues that you know quite well will not be adopted is not an effective way to contribute to this process.” The point of DNT is to express a user preference not to be tracked, he said. Losing targeted, but not contextual, marketing is a “trade-off that is best chosen by the user,” presuming DNT reflects an actual choice, he said. It’s not a permitted use because it’s the collection of data for the sake of targeted marketing that the user is trying to turn off, he said. The harm is “clearly demonstrated by anyone looking over the shoulder (or monitoring the traffic) of a user in a context different from when that targeting data was collected,” he said. In May, Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch said Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8 will have DNT by default. On Tuesday, however, the Digital Advertising Alliance said it “does not require companies to honor DNT signals fixed by the browser manufacturers and set by them in browsers” (CD Oct 10 p15). Kroes will say she has specific concerns about where the discussion is headed in the W3C in several areas: (1) How users are told about default settings in their software and devices. (2) Ensuring that the DNT standard doesn’t let websites second-guess or disregard user choices. (3) Limiting what can be done without consent. To those taking part in the talks, she plans to say, “You need to find a good consensus -- and fast.”
Banks, telcos, ISPs and national and local governments held an EU-wide cyberattack exercise Thursday to see how they would respond to sustained attacks on the computer systems and public websites of major European financial institutions and markets. The organizations faced more than 1,200 separate cyberincidents, including more than 30,000 emails, during a simulated distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) campaign, the European Commission said. It’s Europe’s largest-ever cybersecurity test and follows a more-limited 2010 exercise, it said. At the same time, the EU’s top foreign affairs and security official urged participants at a Budapest, Hungary, conference to agree on global cyberspace behavioral norms.
There’s “remarkable unanimity of support” among U.S. policymakers, legislators and others for the decision to oppose a World Conference on International Communications proposal by the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association to give the ITU more control over the Internet, U.S. Ambassador to the EU William Kennard said Tuesday. The general feeling is very much “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said at an ETNO/Financial Times summit in Brussels. That doesn’t mean the U.S. doesn’t respect the ITU, but it doesn’t see how the ETNO plan will work, said the former FCC chairman. Incumbent network operators, meanwhile, said they are struggling to find ways to monetize the Internet.
Europe needs its own cloud computing strategy if it’s to lead the rest of the world as it did with GSM, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Thursday. Her plan to unleash the potential of the cloud won’t affect relations with the U.S., where many key cloud services providers are located, but will give European companies the chance to compete more fairly, she said at a press briefing. Small and mid-sized businesses applauded the move, but cloud computing companies and consumers voiced concerns.
U.S. and EU regulators cleared Universal Music Group’s proposed takeover of EMI’s recorded music business. The European Commission imposed tough conditions on the $1.9 billion deal, including mandatory divestiture of several major assets, while the FTC concluded that the transaction didn’t pose a competition threat in the U.S. and closed its investigation. The decisions disgusted Impala, which represents European independent music companies, and Public Knowledge.