The UK-sited data center, which should help settle the compliance worries of many of Salesforce’s European customers, will be completed in 2014. The firm is also running a €5 million Innovation Challenge for EU startups. Read more »
From smart fabrics to sensors that are powered by the very vibrations they measure, researchers and companies are hard at work figuring out how to make the most of the energy around us. Read more »
Good news for startups hoping to draw on public road traffic and weather data, among other types: changes agreed on Wednesday should allow the use of such data for free or at very low cost. Read more »
Remember when Google drew together all its privacy policies last March? That move has now prompted investigations from privacy regulators across Europe, who say the company has ignored their recommendations. Read more »
The EU still wants to meet its lofty fast-broadband goals despite having had to slash funding, and it sees simplification of roadworks and 4G mast planning as key to achieving this. Read more »
Apple’s warranty practices come under fire again in Europe as EU Justice Commissioner calls for better enforcement of current consumer protection laws. Read more »
If Google really did set off the process that led to Microsoft’s mammoth fine, then this was in a way just another episode in an increasingly nasty war between the two companies. Read more »
Europe used to lead the world in mobile technologies, but with 4G it’s fallen behind. Neelie Kroes wants to change that by funding 5G research and improving EU spectrum coordination. Read more »
The EU security agency ENISA has released a report on the cloud’s increasingly critical nature. Yes, it highlights the risks associated with the shift to the cloud, but also some notable security benefits. Read more »
How do you highlight examples of big corporations’ lobbying proposals being copied, word-for-word, into proposed laws? For EU privacy activists, the answer lies in many eyes. Read more »
The EU is preparing a package of loans to boost broadband speeds and access across Europe. Neelie Krose, the VP of European Commission is meeting with telecom CEOs and government leaders to push a broadband loan package worth €9.2 billion. Read more »
The European Union’s head of the Justice Commission is asking member countries whether Apple has properly been advertising EU shoppers’ right to a two-year warranty with purchase of its products. This follow’s Italy’s aggressive enforcement of the same practice. Read more »
Facing a fresh investigation from EU regulators over its failure to promote a choice of browsers to Windows 7 users, Microsoft has swiftly blamed a ‘technical error’. But will that be enough to save it from a gigantic fine? Read more »
The European Commission proposed a law on Wednesday to pave the way for easier digital distribution. Prominent musicians, however, immediately slammed the proposal, saying it fails to fix problems of inefficiency and embezzlement. Read more at paidContent »
Stringent data protection rules have proven a big obstacle to cloud adoption in Europe, but now the continent’s privacy watchdogs want to make things more straightforward. How? They’re recommending external inspections on cloud providers in the U.S. and elsewhere. Read more »
Microsoft’s lost its attempt to get an €899m European antitrust fine overturned — an apparent victory for local regulators. But the reality is that while this fine might be vast by European standards, it’s barely a scratch on the surface for Redmond. Read more »
With near-unanimous approval, the European Parliament has voted to make it much cheaper for people in the EU to use the mobile internet on their smartphones and tablets while travelling between the union’s 27 states. Read more »
Apple has been granted a preliminary injunction by a German court, which will effectively prevent the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all countries belonging to the European Union, save the Netherlands. Samsung can still appeal the decision in a few weeks. Read more »
As the EU looks at delivering faster broadband across its member states, a report by the chief executives of Alcatel-Lucent, Deutsche Telekom and Vivendi are asking that the EU allow ISPs to charge content providers for pushing bits across their pipes. Read more »
The culture clash between American and European privacy cultures has been bubbling away for some time, but now European lawmakers have given the clearest signal yet to America’s Internet companies that they will be forced to abide by new, stricter privacy regulations. Read more »
The European Union is broadening an investigation into Google that was originally launched following complaints the web giant was giving its own assets preferential treatment in search results. Google has also been coming under increasing pressure in the U.S. as a result of similar allegations. Read more »
In Silicon Valley, history often repeats itself. Most often it’s the tale of a startup that captures the attention of millions and topples its bigger, incumbent competitors. Then it becomes hated monopoly, despised for the control it wields. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, this ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Lawsuits against companies such as Google and Facebook for breaching privacy rules would become even more likely under new rules being considered by the European Commission, along with criminal sanctions and fines. European regulators have been far more active on privacy concerns than U.S. authorities. Read more »
A European Union court decision says that Google can continue to sell trademarked terms as advertising keywords, but the EU’s highest court left the door open for future lawsuits against the search company — if it’s found to have encouraged trademark infringement through its AdWords service. Read more »
A senior Google executive has said that if the European Union continues to push the search engine to modify the length of time it keeps Street View images of European cities, it may decide not to produce any further photos for the service in Europe. Read more »
