Once upon a long-forgotten time, the ePrivacy regulation was supposed to bring privacy to Europeans surfing the web. Back then, the UK ad industry was anxious to know how #ePrivacy would 'play out post-Brexit'. 2 questions:
Whatever happened to ePrivacy? And what to Brexit?
For the non-geeks among you, ePrivacy is meant to be the landmark data protection law to complete the work of GDPR. Drafts promise to regulate 'privacy-by-default' settings in browsers and make it harder to track users without consent.
For the past one-and-a-half years, ePrivacy has been held up in the Council by an unholy alliance of states such as Austria and Germany. Lobbyists suggest the publishing industry would suffer from curbing behavioural advertising, hence Axel Springer et al hate ePrivacy.
But in fact it is mainly the ad tech-based business model of Google, Facebook and Amazon that would suffer from ePrivacy, whereas smaller players that rely on ads targeted to products, rather than individuals, would probably do rather well out of it.
Crazy that this essential law has been delayed because publishers think they should side with internet giants, rather than consumers, and national governments buy into that. For the geeks out there, here's the source document: whatdotheyknow.com/request/525047…
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Remember when Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher had all these one-on-one meetings with important people in the European Union, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen?
Kutcher was lobbying to curtail privacy, for the sake of fighting child sexual abuse. What gives? 🧵
Two years ago, the European Commission proposed a law that could give authorities the power to require service providers such as WhatsApp to scan all user images and videos on device for child abuse images (CSAM), even circumventing encryption. Privacy advocates were alarmed.
But despite the concerns, Kutcher's NGO Thorn lobbied heavily for the law - and offered its own software to scan for CSAM.
As the Commission readied its proposal, it thanked Thorn as 'partner' for its 'close collaboration'.
BREAKING - After reports that the EU Commission used political microtargeting to sway key groups of their controversial CSAM proposal, the European Data Protection Supervisor has reached out under the "so-called pre-investigation procedure."
What does this mean?
The EDPS requested "information related to the described use of microtargeted ads, to be provided by 20 0ctober."
The EU's data protection authority told me that while "this step does not constitute opening of a formal investigation, the EDPS will assess the information, once received from the Commissions, and decide on the potential next steps accordingly."
The Commission has denied access to the EU membership questionnaire which president Zelenskyy personally handed to Ursula von der Leyen during a visit to Kyiv in June. #Ukraine
Why is this important? Von der Leyen said in a speech on April 8 that "[t]his questionnaire is the basis for our discussion in the coming months." It details on political and economic criteria for accession, as well as the aquis of European law.
When I asked the Commission for the questionnaire, they told me that the Ukrainian government had published the questions (if not the answers) on their website. They have since been removed and are unfindable on the Wayback Machine.
Eigentlich recht merkwürdig, dass das ziemlich beachtliche Interview von @KappacherS mit Gemeindebundpräsident Riedl im Mittagsjournal heute so wenig Beachtung fand. Warum es so interessant war? Ein 🧵
Zum einen hat Riedl mit seiner kritischen Haltung zur ÖVP-Spitze kaum hinter Berg gehalten und deutlich Ärger über die vielen Korruptionsvorwürfe spüren lassen. Im einzigen Zeitungsbericht im Kurier kommt das zahm rüber, aber an der Basis brodelt offenbar. kurier.at/politik/inland…
Interessant auch, dass Riedl beim heißen Övp-Thema Kinderbetreuung ("Kann ich ein Bundesland aufheizen") mehr Geld und Standards vom Bund fordert. Hier kriegt die Kritik an der kopflosen Parteiführung eine inhaltliche Kontur.
What Ursula von der Leyen is typing into her phone is, frankly, not a private matter. We need public scrutiny of EU text messages when they are used to make billion euro vaccine deals. The @EUombudsman says it loud and clear today in regard to a complaint I filed. (Thread)
What's this about? Early this year, the Commission announced it will buy 1,8 billion additional Pfizer doses. This made Pfizer the EU's most important vendor and fuels the booster campaigns around the EU. The deal was clinched in calls and text messages, @MatinaStevis reported.
If the Commission President engages on the highest level with a vendor for what's likely the procurement deal of the decade, that should be up for scrutiny, right? After all, the EU has a freedom of information law, Regulation 1049/2001. It was made exactly for things like this.