Yahoo! takes the lead in EU data protection compliance
Tomás F. Serna
December 17, 2008
The on-line privacy arena is getting hotter by the minute… Yahoo! announced today a new global data retention policy which highlight consists in that: (…) “Yahoo! will anonymize user log data within 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Yahoo! will also expand the policy to apply not only to search log data but also page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks.”
By taking this step, not only Yahoo! is complying with EU law, but it is most probably setting a new standard that Google and Microsoft -amongst others- will have no other option but to follow.
As recently as last week (Dec. 9th.), Microsoft made the news by stating that they would anonymize and discard data from search queries earlier if ‘others’ did the same.
As earlier discussed in this forum, Google has been engaged in a year and a half ‘disagreement‘ with EU data protection officials that has taken its privacy and data retention policies to shrink from a very open “for as long as they are useful” to a period in between 18 to 24 months, and more recently to 9 months.
Class actions in Europe – the fear of the unknown?
Charlotte Leskinen
December 12, 2008
Recently the European Commission published a Green Paper on Consumer Collective Redress which provides options for how to facilitate redress in situations where large numbers of consumers have been harmed by a single trader’s practice which is in breach of consumer law. A survey requested by Directorate-General for Health and Consumers suggests that 76% of consumers in the EU would be more willing to defend their rights in court if they could bring an action together with other consumers.
Breaches of the EC antitrust rules fall outside the scope of the Green Paper, but the recent White Paper on Damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules also proposes the introduction of collective antitrust damages actions, namely representative actions, which would be brought by qualified entities on behalf of some or all of their members, and opt-in actions in which victims expressly decide to combine their individual claims into one single action. However, similar to the field of consumer law, it seems that there is a certain degree of hostility in Europe towards introducing class actions for damages that would be based on an opt-out mechanism, i.e. the possibility of bringing claims also on behalf of unidentified class members. It is a common fear that the introduction of class actions would lead to the adoption of a US-style litigation culture. For instance, the EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva has expressly ruled out the US-style system of class actions for damages.
But also many antitrust practitioners and academics are strongly opposed to class actions. They fear that frivolous class actions might be brought and that defendants will be forced to settle in order to avoid paying large damages awards. Other features of the US civil procedure, such as jury-trials and treble damages, which can but do not always accompany a class action, are also often perceived as an inherent part of the class action. In fact, in the US, treble damages may not only be sought in antitrust class actions, but are also the result of a successful individual action seeking damages for an antitrust violation. In addition, it is often conveniently forgotten that abuses of the class action device mainly occur in other fields of law, while the complexity and uncertainty in the outcome of antitrust class actions tend to limit the abuses.
Culture(s)…
Marie-José Garot
12 décembre, 2008
La Présidence française de l’Union européenne s’achève sur un bilan plutôt positif même si la délicate question de la ratification du Traité de Lisbonne n’est toujours pas définitivement réglée. On retiendra surement les initiatives de la Présidence pour une Europe pour la Méditerranée ou pour tenter de sortir l’Europe de la crise. Ce qu’on oubliera peut-être plus rapidement (hélas), ce sont toutes les belles initiatives pour la/les culture/s européenne/s, pour rapprocher les Français des 26 autres cultures européennes ou présenter la culture française dans les autres Etats membres. Citons par exemple la tournée européenne de la Comédie Française dans six nouveaux Etats membres ou les 27 leçons d’histoire européenne données par 27 historiens européens et organisée à Paris durant tout l’automne. Une façon intelligente de renforcer cette « union sans cesse plus étroite entre les peuples de l’Europe » que les préambules des différents traités européens n’ont de cesse de proclamer comme objectif de la construction européenne. Qui mieux que la Culture et les échanges pour forger cette identité européenne si nécessaire au dessein européen ? Quel dommage finalement que Jean Monnet n’ait pas prononcé cette phrase qu’on lui attribue si souvent : « si c’était à refaire, je commencerais par la culture », elle nous aurait permis de conclure notre post en beauté !..
Zanahorias de Oro
J. Ignacio Torreblanca
9 de diciembre, 2008
En el argot de la política exterior se recurre frecuentemente a la distinción entre palos y zanahorias para describir dos maneras diferentes, aunque no necesariamente excluyentes, de condicionar las acciones de los vecinos. No es que la categorización sea muy afortunada (la visión del vecino como un burro al que apalear si no se comporta no parece muy diplomática), pero es útil para discutir el carácter y eficacia de una determinada política exterior.
Así, mientras Washington es responsable del 50% del gasto mundial en defensa, lo que indica un cierto gusto por los instrumentos coercitivos (los palos), la Unión Europea gusta de concebir su política exterior como un escaparate lleno de zanahorias (comercio, inversiones, ayuda al desarrollo, visados, etcétera). La Unión Europea dispone, además, de un poderosísimo instrumento de política exterior: la promesa de adhesión. Con el incentivo de la incorporación, países tan distantes y distintos como Lituania o Grecia, España o Polonia han dejado atrás sus diferencias internas y han puesto en marcha costosísimas reformas, aceptando tal cual y sin rechistar miles de páginas de legislación comunitaria. Con razón, la promesa de adhesión ha sido unánimemente considerada como la zanahoria de oro.
Como se sabe, sin embargo, la ampliación, que durante mucho tiempo fue el buque insignia de la armada europea, hoy es un submarino inerte que reposa a cientos de kilómetros de profundidad. La incapacidad de los miembros de la UE de acordar las reformas institucionales que permitan a una unión de 27 miembros funcionar eficazmente, junto con el muy decepcionante resultado de la última ampliación a Rumania y Bulgaria, han llevado a una situación de pesimismo entre élites y opinión pública europea generalmente descrita como fatiga de ampliación.
En estas circunstancias, la UE enfrenta desde hace algún tiempo un doble problema: por un lado, tiene que encontrar tanto la manera de honrar los compromisos de ampliación existentes con países como Croacia y Turquía como la de hacer creíble el futuro europeo de Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania o Bosnia-Herzegovina. Por otro, ha tenido que inventarse, para aquellos que no pueden o no quieren ser miembros, una política de vecindad que, a pesar de carecer del incentivo de la adhesión, logre que la UE esté rodeada de países estables, prósperos y bien gobernados. (more…)
Best privacy policy. Ever.
Tomás F. Serna
December 8, 2008
“Privacy is a hot topic these days, and we want you to feel totally comfortable using our service, so our privacy policy is very simple: when you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies (…). Your search history is your business, not ours.” (…)
Now, this is refreshing.
This privacy policy belongs to cuil.com, a somewhat recent initiative in the Internet ’search’ business arena.
Founded amongst others by ex-googlers and billed as the “biggest Internet search engine” –it claims to have 120 billion web pages in its index, “3x more than any other search engine“–, Cuil inc. “analyzes de web, not its users“. That last one, is another line I love. You’ll be able to find it in the site’s FAQ.
Ixquick, a EU based search engine that was awarded the first European Privacy Seal (EuroPriSe) earlier this year, comes close to this. They recognize that search history can poise a serious privacy problem and they provide the following approach: They state that the only real solution is to delete user’s data and they promise to do so after 48 hours.
This was groundbreaking for me when I discovered Ixquick through EuroPriSe a couple months ago. It still is when compared to policies operated by major search engines out there. But Cuil’s way of tackling the issue is a much better one for the privacy conscious user. Or for any kind user for that matter. The first and foremost solution is to not record personal information from users in the first place.
So kudos to Cuil! This is a true breakthrough in the search engine business model. I really hope they can keep it up.
On a final note, I’d like to direct readers to Ixquick’s privacy information pages. Some interesting information over privacy and search engines there.