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."

Following a very strong opposing movement, the decree allowing the creation of EDVIGE file has been abandoned by the French Government, but it will be replaced by a modified project called now EDVIRSP.

On 1 July 2008, the French Government had announced a project creating a huge database, EDVIGE (Exploitation documentaire et valorisation de l'information générale - Documentary exploitation and valorisation of general information) which would have systematically gathered information on any person having applied for or exercised a political, union or economical mandate or playing a significant institutional, economical, social or religious part as well as information on any person considered by the police as a "suspect" potentially capable of disrupting the public order.

The decree was very rapidly and strongly opposed by a large number of

Following the demands of EU privacy protection authorities, Google announced on 9 September it would reduce the search data retention time from 18 to 9 months.

This is the second reduction Google applies in the past 2 years, having already reduced the retention period from indefinite to 18 months in 2007. However, the company still does not meet the Article 29 Working Party's recommendations.

On 4 April 2008, the Article 29 Working Party published an opinion on search engines, recommending a maximum retention period of 6 months and reaffirming the applicability of the European data protection law. "Search engine providers must delete or irreversibly anonymise personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose they were collected for."

As a result, on 8 September 2008, Google answered announcing that the IP

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It has been revealed that the Spanish local police of Sada (Galicia) was keeping an illegal database with information and pictures of people, gathered during night patrols.

On 14 August 2008, a counsellor, a local police officer and a Guardia Civil sergeant discovered in an office of the USC (Unidade de Seguridade Cidadán - City Security Unit) an archive with the photographs and personal data of people identified during night patrols. Apparently the archive was locked and the council officials responsible with the local police had no access to the respective files.

The situation was considered as "irregular" and Mayor Abel López Soto announced an investigation into the matter, offering the council's

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UK consumer watchdog, the National Consumer Council (NCC), together with other consumer groups want the European Commission to force companies to publicly admit when they lose customer data. A data breach notification law would make companies keep data more securely.

"What we're asking for is when the kind of data has been lost that can pose a serious risk in terms of identity theft or taking over bank accounts or cleaning out bank accounts and so on, that the consumers are notified so that they can take appropriate measures" said senior policy advisor Anna Fielder adding that "It will be an incentive for businesses to put better security measures in place because obviously that can cause a lot of brand

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The European Parliament (EP) discussed on 2 September 2008 the draft directives to reform the EU framework on electronic communications (telecom package). Besides the debates on the telecom issues, the MEPs have discussed the role of the ISPs in combating Intellectual Property Rights violations and the modifications to the ePrivacy directive in order to include more provisions on consumer protection and data security.

Some of the amendments that were passed by the EP Committees were challenged by some of the speakers, beliving they could endanger the principle of the neutrality of the Internet. Rebecca Harms (Germany), David Hammerstein (Spain) and Eva-Britt Svensson (Sweden) considered that the

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A new secret report, made available by Statewatch, drafted by the "Future Group" of Interior and Justice Ministers from six EU member states (Germany, France, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia, and Czech Republic) suggests a series of proposals to boost EU integration in policing and intelligence-gathering, including the creation an EU-US Area of cooperation for "freedom, security and justice."

The group's controversial proposals are certain to trigger major disputes, proposing that the EU members states should pool information in a central intelligence unit, creating a network of "anti-terrorist centres", standardising police surveillance techniques and extending the sharing of

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Civil rights organizations call for protests against the constant increase of surveillance conducted by governments and enterprises. A rally under the motto "Freedom not Fear" will be held in Berlin on 11 October 2008. The organizers agree that it is high time to take to the streets in order to defend basic constitutional rights in the light of an ongoing intensification of security and surveillance measures. The rally turns against the promotion of the Federal Criminal Police Office ("Bundeskriminalamt") to a central, executive police agency with the permission to secretively spy into citizens' home computers.

After last year's demonstration for democracy and civil rights, which was

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Several leading human rights NGOs from Macedonia issued a reaction to the Parliament and the Government of Republic of Macedonia on 24 June 2008, regarding the recent changes in the Law on Criminal Procedure and the Law on Interception of Communications, allowing special investigative measures (such as surveillance).

The Foundation Open Society Institute - Macedonia, the Association for Criminal Justice and Criminology of Macedonia and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights of the Republic of Macedonia expressed deep concern because of the fast-track adoption of changes in the legislation "without no expert discussion whatsoever." These changes can turn Macedonia from a state based

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The Swedish National Defence Radio Establishment FRA that has made the headlines last month with its law on spying on all communication, has recently announced that it has reported a blogger to the Chancellor of Justice for distributing what they consider classified material proving the Agency was spying on Swedes starting with 1996.

Henrik Alexandersson is the name of the blogger that criticized the new FRA surveillance law. He published two lists of FRA's alleged classified material on his blog. The first document is a list of 103 Swedish citizens that were under surveillance in the early 90's for having contacts with Russia. The other publication is a list of connections between Russian