Head of German anti-trust regulator Andreas Mundt warns we should not just worry about GAFA (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook), but also about BAT - Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, soon to enter the European market. #dataprotection
In a neat pastiche of the looming power of data in competition, Mundt has European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli looming over him via stream. Tellingly for EU policy-making, they are speaking in the Bavarian representation smack behind the EP. #TechPolicy
Mundt lays out the reformist case for addressing competition imbalances through data dominance by Google and Facebook. He talks about the Facebook case the German authorities were prosecuting on the merger with WhatsApp.
Mundt says that authorities need to achieve an internal divestiture and data silos within companies, which could be achieved easer rather than breaking them up, 'especially for small agencies in Bonn'.
Now on to convening the full panel of DATA PROTECTION AND COMPETITIVENESS IN THE DIGITAL AGE, a shindig organised by @EU_EDPS at the Bavarian castle. Quite high-profile attendance with Commission overlord Martin Selmayr, ICO's Elisabeth Denham, Ulrich Kelber and CNIL's head.
@CNIL's head Marie-Laure Denis urges more regulatory cooperation within Europe, not only between DPA's and competition authorities, but also human rights bodies and cyber-security agencies. Joint studies, staff exchanges and formal networks. Draw together expertise.
Martin Selmayr announces assesment of GDPR one year on, calling for an end to gold-plating. He jokes about German 'hysteria' about data protection. "We invent something, bring it to Brussels and then lament about it. We also do this even with Commission president candidates."
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.
Nice win regarding transparency in EU negotiations - the Council replied positively to my request and released 60 documents detailing how member states negotiated their position on the Digital Services Act. This will be a really nice resource for anyone working on this. #dsa
Earlier today I published one bit from the trove, a document showing that NATO's Riga centre for strategic communication actively lobbied the Council to change one particular Article in the DSA with the intention to give NATO researchers access to data from Facebook etc.
You can find the story here, in German. (Let me know if there is interest for a translation.) netzpolitik.org/2022/exklusiv-…