In a brief debate on Tuesday, all major groups in the Parliament expressed either concern or outright anger at the PRISM program and the way it treats EU citizens’ data. Read more »
Decision time looms. And as painful as it seems, right now it feels like the only responsible response to the PRISM scandal would be to stop using American web services for any private communications. Read more »
The European Commission knew about PRISM. And, while it may want to firm up data protection rules, it’s up to individual EU governments to decide whether they’re OK with the U.S. spying on their citizens. Read more »
The proposed new rules would stop carriers from blocking services that compete with their own, but still allow subtler types of discrimination. It would be an improvement, but also allow the creation of a two-speed internet. Read more »
Europe’s digital chief has revealed plans for a “radical legislative compromise” that will eliminate roaming premiums and enshrine net neutrality within the EU. This is explicitly intended to show citizens that the EU matters. Read more »
The European Commission is “almost 100 percent” likely to tell Google to improve its antitrust settlement proposals, Joaquin Almunia has told the European Parliament. The proposals would settle an investigation over alleged search bias. Read more »
A new industrial strategy for the continent aims to unlock €100 billion in private-sector funding through the use of targeted public-sector funding for R&D in the fields of nanoelectronics and microelectronics. Read more »
RapidShare used to be the world’s most popular one-click hoster, used by millions to store and share files. Now, it has to lay off 75 percent of its staff. Read more »
Europe’s antitrust authorities have invited Motorola to defend itself over its use of essential patents as legal weapons against Apple, despite Apple’s willingness to pay what it considered a reasonable royalty rate. Read more »
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 »
The European Commission has formally revealed the concessions Google is offering to make in order to settle an antitrust investigation over its search practices. Interested parties have a month to comment. 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 »
Netflix won’t expand to another international market until the end of this or early next year, but the company is already looking for help to translate its site – giving us some interesting clues. Read more at paidContent »
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 »
Europe needs to do more to reduce wasteful energy consumption, and its policy makers are looking at how to green its data centers to help them achieve a 2020 energy efficiency goal. 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 »
A British man has found some sympathy in the courts because Google did not delete false comments about him made on Blogger fast enough. Does his case open a backdoor to internet regulation? Read more »
In a massive blow to Europe’s plans of getting everyone – even in rural areas – on at least 30 Mbps by 2020, a $9.36 billion fund for stimulating broadband deployment has been axed. Read more »
6Wunderkinder continues to churn out native versions of its task management app that are optimized for their respective platforms. The latest version, for Android tablets, includes widgets and inter-app sharing. Read more »
A survey by the analyst house Ovum has found a similar antipathy towards online tracking on both sides of the Atlantic. And that, they say, could have big implications for big data. Read more »
Apple won’t immediately have a new model ready that meets new safety regulations. But CEO Tim Cook promised last year something “really great” is coming in 2013. Read more »
We all know Europe’s a bit behind the curve on cloud, but that’s not the only reason the fast-growing IaaS platform is finding the going tougher there than elsewhere. Read more »
The crowdsourced mapping project has now chalked up more than a million contributors, although fewer than 20,000 are active on a monthly basis. Read more »
The German outfit, which has raised $1.47 million in funding, offers Android testing on virtualized devices. In some ways it’s a stopgap measure, but TestObject intends to keep it up as a low-cost testing option. Read more »
AT&T apparently is revving up the acquisition machine once again, this time targeting Europe mobile carriers. Buying an overseas mobile arm might be a good investment, but it does little operationally for Ma Bell. Read more »
Speed is important when you’re building a new company. But don’t think it’s the only thing that matters, says Philipp Moehring, one of the faces behind leading European accelerator Seedcamp. Read more »
About 23 percent of world’s connections are now mobile broadband, according to new statistics compiled by Wireless Intelligence. 3G networks still predominate with WiMAX and LTE accounting for a mere 5 percent of the 1.6 billion total. Read more »
Vodafone has fessed up to responsibility for the outage, which affected an unspecified number of BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East and Africa on Friday. Read more »
SAP’s customers, used to running its enterprise software on the likes of Oracle, now have an in-house in-memory alternative. It’s a bid for relevance on SAP’s part and, according to chairman Hasso Plattner, mobile is the big driver. Read more »
Tableau’s new European VP James Eiloart reckons that Europe’s current belt-tightening phase should provide ample opportunities for his company’s analytics products, in spite of established local rivals. Read more »
The Berlin clone factory’s simple payments service, Paymill, has picked up €10 million from Holtzbrinck and Sunstone. With Rocket’s many operations pulling in tens of millions in investment each month, the flotation rumor comes as no surprise. Read more »
A child protection scandal and failure to innovate have left Habbo Hotel — once one of the most popular virtual worlds — reeling. Now with the departure of CEO Paul LaFontaine, it’s feeling increasingly like the Finnish company faces a do or die moment. Read more »
The latest firmware update for Free’s set-top box adds a beta ad-blocking feature, which turns on by default when the user resets the device. If this was deliberate, it’s an interesting development for an ISP already embroiled in a net neutrality investigation. Read more »
The country’s smallest operator, 3, just grew significantly through the acquisition of number-three player Orange. However, regulatory approval was conditional on a new entrant taking hold later this year, and number-two player T-Mobile is also deeply unhappy about aspects of the takeover. Read more »
Ofcom wants to make it possible for consumers to pull out of their mobile contracts without paying a penalty, if the carrier raises the agreed contract price. But, as operators have warned, this may mean drastically reducing upfront hardware subsidies. Read more »
Despite a new agreement with Google, Belgian media will launch their own shared user management and payment system, reducing the amount of free content on their sites. Read more at paidContent »
A string of offensive hashtag memes in France has spurred the government to announce a consultation on hate speech with Twitter. It could mark a watershed for the country’s approach to social media — but it’s not just Paris that has a problem. We all do. Read more »
Mail.ru is quitting its ambition of building a Russian Twitter, having failed to build sufficient scale. Instead, it’s aiming to consolidate its ownership of a leading social network. Read more at paidContent »
David Drummond and Peter Fleischer, as well as former CFO George Reyes, had all been convicted over privacy offences relating to a bullying video. Their convictions have now been overturned on appeal. Read more »
It will soon become legal in the UK to copy music from a CD to an iPod, show copyrighted texts on an interactive whiteboard and use copyrighted works in a parody. In other words, this reform was sorely needed. Read more »
