By Patrick Van Eecke and Julie De Bruyn

Article 29 Working Party, the European data protection advisory body, has published its report on the ‘cookie sweep’ that was carried out in September last year in partnership with data protection authorities and other regulators across 8 Member States (Czech Republic, Denmark,
Continue Reading EUROPE: European cookie sweep results published: average of 34.6 cookies per website.

Written by: Carol Umhoefer; Farid Bouguettaya; and Maruschka Graham

In 1994, France implemented a law, known as the “Toubon Law” after France’s then-minister of Culture, Jacques Toubon, to preserve the French language, protect French consumers and promote French culture. At the time, the world wide web
Continue Reading “Toubon Law” 20 Years On: The Cyber Economy and France’s Law on the Mandatory Use of the French Language

Author: Ceyhun Pehlivan, Associate, Madrid

Spain’s Competition Supervision Authority (CNMC), currently in charge of both competition and regulatory matters has ordered the main Mobile Network Operators (MNO) in Spain, namely Telefónica (Movistar), Vodafone and Orange, to ensure wholesale 4G network access for the Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO).

This decision
Continue Reading Spain – Competition Authority orders 4G operators to give MVNOs access

Article 29 Working Party adopts guidelines on the implementation on the Right to be Forgotten judgment of the CJEU

By Patrick Van Eecke & Julie De Bruyn

The Article 29 Working Party, the European data protection advisory body existing of representatives of the national data protection authorities of the EU Member States, announced yesterday to have adopted guidelines – for national data protection authorities – on the implementation of the Court of Justice’s ruling on the right to be forgotten.Continue Reading Europe: Right to be forgotten guidelines adopted by WP29

By Patrick Van Eecke and Antoon Dierick

Almost five months after federal parliamentary elections took place, the negotiators from the four political parties around the negotiating table (Flemish parties NVA, CD&V and Open VLD and Walloon party MR) reached a coalition agreement which contains quite a few interesting policy initiatives
Continue Reading BELGIUM: Belgian government’s new focus on privacy and technology laws

By Florence Guthfreund-Roland & Mathilde Hallé

On April 10, 2014, the Court of First Instance of Paris found that VIAGOGO, a Swiss company operating a website selling sports tickets on the Internet, had no right to sell tickets for a French soccer game organized by the French Professional Soccer League.
Continue Reading FRANCE: A French Court orders a Swiss company selling French game tickets over the Internet to prevent French Internet users from accessing part of its websites

A recent case contains some salutary lessons for service providers concerning liability for fraudulent use of their services. It appears that unless the contract has clear terms to the contrary then the service provider, not the end user, will pay for fraudulent use of a service by hackers even if
Continue Reading Fraudulent use of a service by hackers – a lesson for service providers