Google announced in June that it had struck a deal with Yahoo, so it would sell ads on Yahoo website in return for a share of the profits. The EU anti-competition authorities confirms that they are investigating the deal between the two majors in the online advertising.

The major competitors claimed that this new deal gives a dominant position for Google. This is why the agreement has also been investigated for some months by the US Department of Justice that hired a well-known Washington litigator to oversee the anti-trust proceedings.

Although the companies said that the deal would have effect only in Canada and the United States, The World Association of Newspapers called for a investigation from the EU authorities, claiming: "it would hurt Yahoo's ability to compete against Google in the future."

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The telecoms package seminar on the 27 August 2008 in the European Parliament arranged by Swedish MEP Christofer Fjellner had a remarkably large audience. Over 100 persons came to listen to the five speakers from both industry and civil society.

Over all, the speakers called for better understanding of the so called "copyright amendments" to the package that allegedly have been introduced to the detriment of the 'completion of the internal market' for the telecoms industry. Netzpolitik.org was also streaming the event.

After the introduction by MEP Fjellner, Monica Horten from Westminster University made clear the new technology "Deep Packet Inspection" potentially could be used to censor the Internet in Europe just as it

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New voices from the major copyright experts in the European universities and research centers question the current EU proposals of extension of the copyright term for the performing artists and sound recordings.

As previously covered in the past EDRi-gram, the first letter was addressed to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and sent on 18 July 2008 by the leading European centres for intellectual property research that explained that the new measures "will damage European creative endeavour and innovation beyond repair."

Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, Director of the Institute for Information Law (IViR) that was commissioned by the EC to draft two major studies on the EU

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On 16 July 2008, disregarding the well substantiated findings and opinions of the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law, the Cambridge Study for the UK Government and the Bournemouth University statement signed by 50 leading academics in June 2008, the European Commission (EC) adopted an initiative proposing the extension of the copyright term for the recorded performances as well as records.

Actually, two initiatives were adopted by the European Commission related to copyright, proposing the extension of the copyright term for the recorded performances and phonograms and the harmonisation of the copyright term to cover co-written works as well. The EC also adopted a Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.

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The IMCO (Internal Market Committee) and ITRE (Committee on Industry, Research and Energy) committees of the European Parliament (EP) adopted on the 7 July 2008 the Telecom package, including the amendments that were considered by some NGOs as endangering the principle of the neutrality of the Internet.

One of the MEPs supervising the Telecom package, including the amendments to the five directives that should reform the EU legal framework on electronic communications has explained that the vote on these amendments had nothing to do with copyright enforcement: "There has been a great deal of dismay in the committee at the interpretation being put on these amendments.(...) The

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An updated version of the Regulation on the Visa Information System (VIS) published by Statewatch reveals that only random checks might be carried out, if there are too many people waiting.

As already presented in EDRi-gram, the legislative package on the Visa Information System that included the VIS Regulation has been adopted by the European Parliament. The system will allow fingerprinting and checking security of all visitors to EU that apply for a visa in their home country. All the details, including fingerprints are held on the central VIS database so that on entry to and exit from the EU identity checks can be carried out. The VIS Regulation will allow consulates and other competent authorities to

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Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) wants privacy and data protection requirements to be considered in the future EU research and technological development (RTD) projects, especially those developing information and communication technologies.

The EDPS' main role is to monitor EU developments which have an impact on the protection of personal data, especially the development of ICT and "to advise the Commission and/or project developers on their efforts to use privacy and data protection-friendly RTD methodologies and of course to develop technologies and processes that will promote and reinforce the effectiveness of the EU data protection legal framework".

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The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has issued his opinion on the new draft text of the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (ePrivacy Directive) as proposed by the European Commission.

One of the important changes supported by the EDPS with the new text is the creation of a mandatory security breach notification system. The system should require the Telecoms and ISPs to notify their customers when personal information has been lost. But Peter Hustinx wants to go further and asked for the system to apply not only to "providers of public electronic communication services in public networks but also to other actors, especially to providers of information society services which process

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The 9th meeting of the Council of Europe (CoE) group of specialists on Human Rights in the Information Society (MC-S-IS) was held in Strasbourg from 31 March to 2 April 2008. At the same time, on 1-2 April, another division of the CoE was holding in a building across the street its 2008 Octopus conference on cooperation against cybercrime. This schedule overlapping is not the only sign that CoE's left hand seems to ignore what its right hand is doing: different divisions are also addressing same issues, though from different points of view and with different results.

It happened this time with the guidelines for Internet Service Providers (ISPs). While the Octopus conference was discussing and then adopting its

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Commissioner Charlie McCreevy's announcement in February 2008 that he proposes to nearly double the term of copyright protection for sound recordings from 50 to 95 years came as a shock to UK digital rights campaigners. Back in 2006, here in the UK, the case against copyright term extension was robustly made - by campaigners such as my organisation, the Open Rights Group, and more importantly, by economists from one of the UK's leading universities. It led to a firm commitment from our Government that they would never seek to extend copyright term retrospectively.

There is no case for copyright term extension. Term extension would reduce, yet again, the size of the public domain, harming public