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https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/petition/secured/submit.do?language=EN

send your petition. be warned, this is not an ordinary 'web' petition. if you fill your details correctly, it is a real petition that will be processed by real people in relevant Eu parliament offices. and its the official page.

i told you Eu parliament wouldnt stand for this.

now we all need to gather behind the parliament, regardless who and where are we from. american and belgian, swedish or italian. even hindu, japanese, brasilian.

if you are from Eu or from an Eu candidate status country, you can officially petition European Parliament. this is a legal right. you can do it online, or you can do it with snail mail, as long as you put your name, address correctly. they all are valid and processed.

here is the link to official petition information page of Eu parliament :
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/parliament/public/staticDisplay.do?id=49

in decades now, a parliament is acting on people's behalf with no agenda. support your parliament.

So if the US is pro freedom, pro liberty, pro openness, but also pro capitalism, the question instead becomes: What takes priority among these values ?

Well I was particularly impressed with the EP motion B7-0180/2010 as it is very clear and logical (and long-winded..):

B. having regard to the necessity to fight counterfeiting and to protect certain rights which, however, cannot take precedence over human rights and fundamental freedoms that are the keystone of our societies and of democracy[emphasis mine]; considering the various domains that the negotiators aim to cover in their agreements and the fact that they negotiate secretly,

So basically, your right to fight counterfeiting and protect your trademarks, copyrights and patents ends where it infringes on your fellow human beings' fundamental human rights.
Spread the word, otherwise only old people will know this ;-)

It's pretty exciting seeing the MEPs I voted for being so vocal in defending my rights. It's a strange feeling :P

He signed the European Parliament resolution on transparency and the state of play of ACTA negotiations.

I don't tweet, but I logged in just to thank him.

Why join? Iceland is already covered by the same acts for all intents and purposes through the EFTA and the EEA-agreement between EFTA and the EU.

The browser election update from Microsoft is even called the European Economic Area (EEA) update :)

As a Norwegian I think of Iceland as family, and we would rather help Iceland in any way we can than see it fall to the EU. Like my own nation your country was only recently freed from a neighboring colonial power, stay independent, Iceland, stay free.

You might want to read this then: http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/criminal/extradition/fsj_criminal_extradition_en.htm
Check under "Surrender of Nationals"

Which makes me wonder, is Microsoft asserting patents which cover Samba, perhaps?

That's actually one thing we can be quite sure of they *won't* dare sue anybody for, because they just lost an anti-trust lawsuit about file server interoperability in 2004: Commission concludes on Microsoft investigation, imposes conduct remedies and a fine
From the appeal decision: Order of the President of the Court of First Instance
The verdict:

III – The remedies and fine imposed on Microsoft
26 The two abuses which the Commission identified in the Decision were penalised by the imposition of a fine amounting to EUR 497 196 304 (Article 3 of the Decision).
27 Moreover, Microsoft was required, under Article 4 of the Decision, to bring to an end the abuses established in Article 2 in accordance with Articles 5 and 6 of the Decision. Microsoft is also required to refrain from repeating any act or conduct described in Article 2 and from any act or conduct having the same or equivalent object or effect.[emphasis mine]
28 By way of remedy for the abusive refusal identified in the Decision, Article 5 of the Decision orders Microsoft to act as follows:
‘(a) Microsoft shall, within 120 days of the date of notification of this Decision, make the interoperability information available to any undertaking having an interest in developing and distributing work group server operating system products and shall, on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, allow the use of the interoperability information by such undertakings for the purpose of developing and distributing work group server operating system products;
(b) Microsoft shall ensure that the interoperability information made available is kept updated on an ongoing basis and in a timely manner;
(c) Microsoft shall, within 120 days of the date of notification of this Decision, set up an evaluation mechanism that will give interested undertakings a workable possibility of informing themselves about the scope and terms of use of the interoperability information; as regards this evaluation mechanism, Microsoft may impose reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions to ensure that access to the interoperability information is granted for evaluation purposes only;

I can't find much about Samba, but item 178 reads:

(...) Neither is it obvious to the Commission that a competitor of Microsoft taking advantage of the implementation of the Decision will be infringing some of the claims in those patents. The doubts expressed as to whether a developer of server software using the relevant protocols in order to communicate with Windows clients would infringe the claims in question are confirmed by Microsoft’s behaviour towards Samba, an ‘open source’ product which implements certain Microsoft communications protocols that the Samba group developers have identified using reverse-engineering techniques. Samba appears to have incorporated SMB’s ‘opportunistic locking’ as early as January 1998 (version 1.9.18) and Dfs as early as April 2001 (version 2.2.0). So far as the Commission is aware, the Samba group has never licensed the patents in question from Microsoft and Microsoft has never claimed that its patents were being infringed by the Samba group.(...)

and item 185 (this is a claim by the prosecutor, FSFE)

185 FSF-Europe submits, in essence, that the information which the Decision requires Microsoft to disclose has little value in terms of innovation and contains a number of incompatibilities deliberately introduced in pre-existing written protocols. Microsoft’s approach consists in adopting pre

Which makes me wonder, is Microsoft asserting patents which cover Samba, perhaps?

That's actually one thing we can be quite sure of they *won't* dare sue anybody for, because they just lost an anti-trust lawsuit about file server interoperability in 2004: Commission concludes on Microsoft investigation, imposes conduct remedies and a fine
From the appeal decision: Order of the President of the Court of First Instance
The verdict:

III – The remedies and fine imposed on Microsoft
26 The two abuses which the Commission identified in the Decision were penalised by the imposition of a fine amounting to EUR 497 196 304 (Article 3 of the Decision).
27 Moreover, Microsoft was required, under Article 4 of the Decision, to bring to an end the abuses established in Article 2 in accordance with Articles 5 and 6 of the Decision. Microsoft is also required to refrain from repeating any act or conduct described in Article 2 and from any act or conduct having the same or equivalent object or effect.[emphasis mine]
28 By way of remedy for the abusive refusal identified in the Decision, Article 5 of the Decision orders Microsoft to act as follows:
‘(a) Microsoft shall, within 120 days of the date of notification of this Decision, make the interoperability information available to any undertaking having an interest in developing and distributing work group server operating system products and shall, on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, allow the use of the interoperability information by such undertakings for the purpose of developing and distributing work group server operating system products;
(b) Microsoft shall ensure that the interoperability information made available is kept updated on an ongoing basis and in a timely manner;
(c) Microsoft shall, within 120 days of the date of notification of this Decision, set up an evaluation mechanism that will give interested undertakings a workable possibility of informing themselves about the scope and terms of use of the interoperability information; as regards this evaluation mechanism, Microsoft may impose reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions to ensure that access to the interoperability information is granted for evaluation purposes only;

I can't find much about Samba, but item 178 reads:

(...) Neither is it obvious to the Commission that a competitor of Microsoft taking advantage of the implementation of the Decision will be infringing some of the claims in those patents. The doubts expressed as to whether a developer of server software using the relevant protocols in order to communicate with Windows clients would infringe the claims in question are confirmed by Microsoft’s behaviour towards Samba, an ‘open source’ product which implements certain Microsoft communications protocols that the Samba group developers have identified using reverse-engineering techniques. Samba appears to have incorporated SMB’s ‘opportunistic locking’ as early as January 1998 (version 1.9.18) and Dfs as early as April 2001 (version 2.2.0). So far as the Commission is aware, the Samba group has never licensed the patents in question from Microsoft and Microsoft has never claimed that its patents were being infringed by the Samba group.(...)

and item 185 (this is a claim by the prosecutor, FSFE)

185 FSF-Europe submits, in essence, that the information which the Decision requires Microsoft to disclose has little value in terms of innovation and contains a number of incompatibilities deliberately introduced in pre-existing written protocols. Microsoft’s approach consists in adopting pre

I made my submission after first seeing a story in El Reg. While I saw it in several other places, I thought the Dark Reading story was a bit better in highlighting the findings than most. You're right, though. It's very light on the methodology. The press release on VeraCode's site has a bit more information:

...1,600 Internally Developed, Open Source, Outsourced, and Commercial applications analyzed when first submitted to Veracode...

...the first report of its kind to provide security intelligence derived from multiple testing methodologies (static, dynamic and manual) on the full spectrum of application types (components, shared libraries, web and non-web applications) and programming languages (including Java, C/C++ and .NET) from every part of the software supply chain on which organizations depend.

...analyzing billions of lines of code submitted to Veracode for independent verification of software security from more than 15 industries.

(emphasis added)

So. The sample consists of approximately 1,600 applications consisting of billions of lines of code from self selecting organizations; organizations who have an interest in writing the most secure code possible or they wouldn't be subjecting themselves to this process or paying for the service. And still, 60% of all these apps fail the first time through!

I've been following testing results for FOSS for years. I've waded through thesis papers, press releases, magazine articles, Coverity's Scan site, you name it and I've dug into it. Virtually everything else that I've come across covered just a single means; static or dynamic code analysis, pen testing, fuzz testing, bug report analysis, mathematical breakdowns that attempt to address the "why" FOSS works so well, etc. The press release defines a sample size that is at least within shouting distance as the largest two that I know of; a study commissioned by the European Commission to analyze the economic impact of FLOSS which briefly discusses bug fixing, Coverity, and Coverity again.

At most, they might have tackled two methodologies in a single article. This is the first such announcement that I've been able to find that covers multiple methodologies. IMNSHO, that's what makes this an important story. Slashvertisement or not.

(BTW, note that the original announcment was at RSA Conference 2010. I suppose that makes it a RSAvertisement first? Nahhh. Doesn't trip off the tongue. ;) )

Yes, but there are infringement proceedings against some member states because they don't apply the directive, there are other constitutional courts which rejected it, so a simple recast of the directive is required by the Commission anyway because the directive is wrecked.

ACTA certainly deserves more attention but there are other FTA with such provisions as well.

Just in case you want to file a complaint against a dominant company operating on European markets, just use this form.

I've never heard of it before, but I don't doubt that the journal is legit, just that I don't recall seeing any meaningful peer review process for that particular piece (although I could be wrong here). However, the only things I've read about if from others (such as the French High Council of Biotechnology, European Food Safety Authority, and the Food Standards Australia New Zealand, among some moderately well known individuals) had nothing good to say. Bad stuff does wind up in good journals (as I said, the Wakefield study is a prime example). What they propose is plausible, that the chemicals used cause damage, however, the study still wasn't too hot. I can accept Round-Up causing the problems, I can even accept certain GMOs causing problems (here's two that did), but it won't be this study that convinces me of either. Comparing the Monsanto corn with regular corn, not much of a difference. It reminds me of the Failure to Yield report, which based it's premise (that GMOs have lower yield than non-GMO counterparts) on data showing an increase in yield!

To be fair, apparently the guys who did the study had to fight and claw to get the data they used for it from Monsanto, and that does highlight a lack of transparency which is not very desirable at all, but nonetheless, that doesn't mean that there is enough information to support their premise, and as you say, there certainty isn't justification to have this applied to all the other genetically engineered rice, cassava, potatoes, tomatoes, alfalfa, soybeans, papayas, ect. out there, which it undoubtedly will be.

This is a highly politicized issue (alas), and these things seem to come and go. I know I've seen the 'proof' that GMOs are dangerous before that study, and I don't doubt I'll see it again. When one of them sticks, when the WHO takes notice, when there is some really good strong evidence, when my horticulture professors are running around going "Holy moly look at this!" I'll give it more heed. In the mean time, I remain unimpressed.

Do you have a website? Has your hosting company checked your site to make sure nothing you have posted breaks any law anywhere? Are they responsible if you have? Under EU law (EU eCommerce Directive), they would not be held liable for content created and uploaded by a user.

Yeah, that's just wrong... check the Eurostat report on religion (page 11). At a quick glance there's 6-7 countries with non-religious rates > 25% just in the EU. 33% of the french say they flat out don't believe in a god or higher life force. Only 16% of estonians believe in a god.

If they try it in Europe you ought to file an antitrust complaint as a consumer or as a competitor.

The question is where does the manufacturer's choice stop and where does the customer's choice start.

Don't forget the monopoly/antitrust issue. If you have over 90% of the market, you have to live by different rules.

• OEM deals, pre-installed Windows Vista on a PC (without installation media, with backup partitions taking up the whole hard disk)

That's a decision by the individual PC maker - its not impossible to buy a PC without Windows.

• Pre-installed MacOS on Apple computers

Well, it was established in the Psystar case that Apple having a monopoly on Apple computers wasn't an antitrust issue. Meanwhile, Apple even bundle a utility to let you install Windows on your Mac...

• Contract phones (and netbooks), SIM-locks

The EU already have this in their sights (OK that's from 1996, but so was the browser bundling issue...)

Apple iTunes tying music and books to a certain device

Well, that's history with music, since Apple went over to DRM-free iTunes Plus and Amazon, Play.com etc. started selling DRM-free MP3s (and remember - iPods might not do .ogg but they can play .mp3 and unencrypted .aac from any source).

With books, true, but it needs sorting out for every DRM-encumbered ebook format, not just Apple. My solution: don't buy ebooks until they are (a) DRM-free and (b) somewhat cheaper (esp. for older books).

The scary part is that the parent is modded insightful instead of funny. There are many documented cases of the CIA, NSA, US Department of Commerce and other US entities (both governmental and non-governmental) committing industrial espionage in various forms (breaking into networks, tapping into video conferences, phone tapping, planting microphones and cameras, ...). See e.g. the list under "Published cases" in the Echelon report by the European Parliament.

So please stop acting like Virgin Mary already, it doesn't become you.

Those Governments are unlikely to lose votes or support when they crush you (a foreigner) for misbehaving despite you trying to use some loophole.

Why do Americans think that the EU is only crushing American companies?
They apply the rules equaly to European companies as well.
Last year a German and a French energy company where fined half a billion Euros each for violating antitrust laws: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1099

I hate replying to AC, but you are right. The Commission is actually recommending for the status quo to be maintained.
Here's the press release to prove it. This story is BS at its finest.

It's a bit complicated, but when selling to private individuals, it has always been the VAT rate of that individual's country.

There is a certain allowance per merchant, year and country. If a merchant is below that allowance he can also choose to apply the VAT of his country.

See here.

The B2B case is another story.

--- Problem ---

• The current agreement is unacceptable for Europeans and would be interim anyway
• The US embassador to the European Union, William Kennard blackmailed members of the European Parliament and the leaders of the groups. He has to abstain from interference into the inner affairs of the EU and violated the rules of diplomatic conduct. His black mail attempt was foolish because it is impossible for member states to enter bilateral agreements with the US and that would be an unbearable and illegal act of illoyality. His bluff: 'I am unsure whether Washington agencies would again decide to address this issue at EU level'
• The European Commission thought they could ignore the European Parliament as the competent body. Currently a new Commission is put into office.
• SWIFT data is toxic and European financial institutions are very sensitive about this. The use of the SWIFT data for anti-terrorism purposes is fishy.
• Europeans get nothing in return for the transmission of their sensitive data

--- Process ---

Agreement between the EU and the USA on
the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the
European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist
Finance Tracking Program, Rapporteur: Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (A7-0013/2010)

  ---- Scenarios and options ----

• Restore the honour of the US diplomatic corps by a dismissal of the offender Kennard
• Interinstitutional deal and adoption (Clinton)
• Rejection by the European Parliament plenary and renewed referral.
• Even stronger resolution by the European Parliament than what the Committee proposed, given the latest incidents.

A rejection is currently likely. See the debate and voting timetable at Seance en direct.

  ---- Documents ----

• 
  Council Decision 2010/16/CFSP/JHA of 30 November 2009 on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
• OEIL: NLE/2009/0190 EU/USA agreement: processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

--- Problem ---

• The current agreement is unacceptable for Europeans and would be interim anyway
• The US embassador to the European Union, William Kennard blackmailed members of the European Parliament and the leaders of the groups. He has to abstain from interference into the inner affairs of the EU and violated the rules of diplomatic conduct. His black mail attempt was foolish because it is impossible for member states to enter bilateral agreements with the US and that would be an unbearable and illegal act of illoyality. His bluff: 'I am unsure whether Washington agencies would again decide to address this issue at EU level'
• The European Commission thought they could ignore the European Parliament as the competent body. Currently a new Commission is put into office.
• SWIFT data is toxic and European financial institutions are very sensitive about this. The use of the SWIFT data for anti-terrorism purposes is fishy.
• Europeans get nothing in return for the transmission of their sensitive data

--- Process ---

Agreement between the EU and the USA on
the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the
European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist
Finance Tracking Program, Rapporteur: Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (A7-0013/2010)

  ---- Scenarios and options ----

• Restore the honour of the US diplomatic corps by a dismissal of the offender Kennard
• Interinstitutional deal and adoption (Clinton)
• Rejection by the European Parliament plenary and renewed referral.
• Even stronger resolution by the European Parliament than what the Committee proposed, given the latest incidents.

A rejection is currently likely. See the debate and voting timetable at Seance en direct.

  ---- Documents ----

• 
  Council Decision 2010/16/CFSP/JHA of 30 November 2009 on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
• OEIL: NLE/2009/0190 EU/USA agreement: processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

--- Problem ---

• The current agreement is unacceptable for Europeans and would be interim anyway
• The US embassador to the European Union, William Kennard blackmailed members of the European Parliament and the leaders of the groups. He has to abstain from interference into the inner affairs of the EU and violated the rules of diplomatic conduct. His black mail attempt was foolish because it is impossible for member states to enter bilateral agreements with the US and that would be an unbearable and illegal act of illoyality. His bluff: 'I am unsure whether Washington agencies would again decide to address this issue at EU level'
• The European Commission thought they could ignore the European Parliament as the competent body. Currently a new Commission is put into office.
• SWIFT data is toxic and European financial institutions are very sensitive about this. The use of the SWIFT data for anti-terrorism purposes is fishy.
• Europeans get nothing in return for the transmission of their sensitive data

--- Process ---

Agreement between the EU and the USA on
the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the
European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist
Finance Tracking Program, Rapporteur: Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (A7-0013/2010)

  ---- Scenarios and options ----

• Restore the honour of the US diplomatic corps by a dismissal of the offender Kennard
• Interinstitutional deal and adoption (Clinton)
• Rejection by the European Parliament plenary and renewed referral.
• Even stronger resolution by the European Parliament than what the Committee proposed, given the latest incidents.

A rejection is currently likely. See the debate and voting timetable at Seance en direct.

  ---- Documents ----

• 
  Council Decision 2010/16/CFSP/JHA of 30 November 2009 on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
• OEIL: NLE/2009/0190 EU/USA agreement: processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

It's not that simple.

Yeah, the four freedoms are fine, except when you're a Polish carpet cleaner, who, you know, is an "authorized person", which is a "one man company".

There is no freedom of "service" ... there was a debate about two years ago if to let companies provide services (as opposed to selling goods), but the stumbling block was the difference in taxes.

check this here: http://ec.europa.eu/youreurope/business/profiting-from-eu-market/providing-services/index_en.htm

The freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services are both central EU principles governing the single market for services. These principles entitle EU entrepreneurs to establish a business in the country where the services will be offered or to supply services across borders, to other EU countries, without setting up an establishment there - e.g. by phone, via the internet or direct marketing.

Which means if you want to provide services, either you set up a new company in the country you want to sell services to, or do it ... over the internet. A bit limiting, I suppose.

Or check it here (no, it's not wikipedia, which is great for IT, but not so great for law or pol/sci): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/dat/12002E/htm/C_2002325EN.003301.html, articles from 49 on.

Shall we start a debate about "freedom" in the agriculture business :D ?

As the freedom of "labor", that works for manual labor, otherwise you have to get certified in the country you move to. Until, I think, last year, Germany did not even recognize academic titles that were not issued by German universities ... there was an American who got busted for recommending himself as PhD (he got off easy in the end) :P. These rules get relaxed or tightened according to the perceived needs for labor. I think in UK a nurse would get accepted quite fast, while a MD from anywhere in EU would have to retake most of his exams. A MD, a lawyer, architect, school teacher (even for Algebra) would find it very hard to get into the "protected guilds" anywhere in Europe (I am not talking about EU15, EU25, EU27 or any other EU??). If you're from US, imagine having to go again through the last two years of medical school if you want to move from Arizona to Nevada.

Though, I have to admit, IT is safe from hassle. The demand for qualified labor willing to abandon home and dog and move (as often as needed) where there is need is so great that if you got the skills to pass the tests the company hiring you devised, you can be a dog, they would not care, and there are still no guilds to ask you jump through the hoops.

The situation is evolving towards freedom of labor etc., but it's not there yet: the web of entitlements, privileges and protection of ... whatever need to be protected for "the sake of children", is so great I am afraid it might come crashing down on our heads before we get the four freedoms.

Those parents were forced to hire a certified teacher not for the sake of the children, but for the sake of the teacher.

It's not that simple.

Yeah, the four freedoms are fine, except when you're a Polish carpet cleaner, who, you know, is an "authorized person", which is a "one man company".

There is no freedom of "service" ... there was a debate about two years ago if to let companies provide services (as opposed to selling goods), but the stumbling block was the difference in taxes.

check this here: http://ec.europa.eu/youreurope/business/profiting-from-eu-market/providing-services/index_en.htm

The freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services are both central EU principles governing the single market for services. These principles entitle EU entrepreneurs to establish a business in the country where the services will be offered or to supply services across borders, to other EU countries, without setting up an establishment there - e.g. by phone, via the internet or direct marketing.

Which means if you want to provide services, either you set up a new company in the country you want to sell services to, or do it ... over the internet. A bit limiting, I suppose.

Or check it here (no, it's not wikipedia, which is great for IT, but not so great for law or pol/sci): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/dat/12002E/htm/C_2002325EN.003301.html, articles from 49 on.

Shall we start a debate about "freedom" in the agriculture business :D ?

As the freedom of "labor", that works for manual labor, otherwise you have to get certified in the country you move to. Until, I think, last year, Germany did not even recognize academic titles that were not issued by German universities ... there was an American who got busted for recommending himself as PhD (he got off easy in the end) :P. These rules get relaxed or tightened according to the perceived needs for labor. I think in UK a nurse would get accepted quite fast, while a MD from anywhere in EU would have to retake most of his exams. A MD, a lawyer, architect, school teacher (even for Algebra) would find it very hard to get into the "protected guilds" anywhere in Europe (I am not talking about EU15, EU25, EU27 or any other EU??). If you're from US, imagine having to go again through the last two years of medical school if you want to move from Arizona to Nevada.

Though, I have to admit, IT is safe from hassle. The demand for qualified labor willing to abandon home and dog and move (as often as needed) where there is need is so great that if you got the skills to pass the tests the company hiring you devised, you can be a dog, they would not care, and there are still no guilds to ask you jump through the hoops.

The situation is evolving towards freedom of labor etc., but it's not there yet: the web of entitlements, privileges and protection of ... whatever need to be protected for "the sake of children", is so great I am afraid it might come crashing down on our heads before we get the four freedoms.

Those parents were forced to hire a certified teacher not for the sake of the children, but for the sake of the teacher.

Statistically, you didn't vote in the last European elections. That's where the democracy you speak of has gone.

The EU Parliament is a gravy-train. Your MEP most likely doesn't even turn up most days of the week, least of all on the days when stuff you care about is being debated.

If like a lot of people you're about to say "yes, I but don't even want my country to be in the EU", well, again, we all got to vote for our respective governments, and we voted for parties who wanted to join up. For those of us that didn't vote for our government, and even though they didn't get 50%+ of the votes, well, you still voted for your version of democracy. What's wrong in the EU/your country today got set that way 10+ years ago.

I'm not saying this is good, and I'm not saying I feel any more 'in control' than you do, but we are all to blame here. Democracy sucks like that.

* yes, I know my citations aren't brilliant, but I couldn't immediately lay my hands on better ones ;-)

in europe, thanks to publishing lobbies the companies gets paid to compensate allegedly lost sales.
in italy at least this is paid directly by the government, so that end users haven't noticed, still I think it's a shame that libraries, which for thousands of years have been the place that could freely spread culture are now considered 'lost sales'

it's directive 92/100 from 1992 (in several languages).

here is an explanation.

press release from 2002 that says that many countries have not adopted the directive yet (italy did in 1996).

wikipedia says this amount is in reality not very high, however the principle itself is chilling.

in europe, thanks to publishing lobbies the companies gets paid to compensate allegedly lost sales.
in italy at least this is paid directly by the government, so that end users haven't noticed, still I think it's a shame that libraries, which for thousands of years have been the place that could freely spread culture are now considered 'lost sales'

it's directive 92/100 from 1992 (in several languages).

here is an explanation.

press release from 2002 that says that many countries have not adopted the directive yet (italy did in 1996).

wikipedia says this amount is in reality not very high, however the principle itself is chilling.

in europe, thanks to publishing lobbies the companies gets paid to compensate allegedly lost sales.
in italy at least this is paid directly by the government, so that end users haven't noticed, still I think it's a shame that libraries, which for thousands of years have been the place that could freely spread culture are now considered 'lost sales'

it's directive 92/100 from 1992 (in several languages).

here is an explanation.

press release from 2002 that says that many countries have not adopted the directive yet (italy did in 1996).

wikipedia says this amount is in reality not very high, however the principle itself is chilling.

Every single time EU regulates USA companies, some Americans come and say "They are just being hard on USA companies". But no. They have been very strict to other companies too (Just google about EU and Samsung, Siemens, ABB, Alstom, Saint-Gobain... The list really goes on. Go ahead, check by yourself. They have been handing out massive fines here and there for anti-competitive practices.).

It's just that the media in USA doesn't pay that much attention to EU fining european companies. In addition, european countries in general have stricter regulation on national level so antitrust investigations on smaller european corporations are done at that level.

• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer A from December 2002 to December 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing exclusively Intel CPUs
• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer B from November 2002 to May 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 95% of its CPU needs for its business desktop computers from Intel (the remaining 5% that computer manufacturer B could purchase from rival chip maker AMD was then subject to further restrictive conditions set out below)
• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer C from October 2002 to November 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 80% of its CPU needs for its desktop and notebook computers from Intel
• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer D in 2007 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing its CPU needs for its notebook computers exclusively from Intel.

...
For example, rival chip manufacturer AMD offered one million free CPUs to one particular computer manufacturer. If the computer manufacturer had accepted all of these, it would have lost Intel's rebate on its many millions of remaining CPU purchases, and would have been worse off overall simply for having accepted this highly competitive offer. In the end, the computer manufacturer took only 160,000 CPUs for free.

The amount of extra distance you can ship without generating extra waste is a function of the shipping method and is certainly not going to be 1:1

That's correct, and yes, I assumed equivalent shipping methods. However, using different shipping methods only makes your case worse, since ships and trains tend to produce less waste per tonne-kilometer. Check here if you don't believe me.

Unless you're assuming that the Chinese light-bulbs are being shipped via air-mail, changing the assumptions I used in my estimate will only extend the distance you can ship your bulbs while maintaining the same level of fuel usage/CO2 emission.

Here's a quick comparison: 1 tonne of Chinese made bulbs from Beijing to California, vs 1 tonne of American bulbs from California to, say, Nebraska.

Case 1: Distance = 9,800km, CO2 = 14 g/km
Case 2: Distance = 1,900km, CO2 = 120 g/km.

Case 1 Trip CO2 Output: 137.2 kg
Case 2 Trip CO2 Output: 228.0 kg

Ergo, shipping your bulbs from California to Nebraska by truck generates almost twice as much CO2 as shipping the same bulbs from China to California via boat, even though the trip is 5 times shorter.

That's the reason why it was accepted:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_1178620772383.htm

"In conclusion, the Panel considers that the information available for MON 863 addresses the outstanding questions raised by the Member States and considers that MON 863 will not have an adverse effect on human and animal health or the environment in the context of its proposed use."

While I am not at all fan of Monsanto, I have to say that in the past research on GM crops has been highly polarized and there has been a lot of poor science from both sides. Let's wait and see how this study classifies.

From the EU DG Environment:
STUDY TO ANALYSE THE DEROGATION REQUEST ON THE USE OF HEAVY METALS IN PLASTIC CRATES AND PLASTIC PALLETS

Apparently, it takes AGES to get rid of the Cadmium from beer crates, but on the other hand it doesn't leech out easily, either. In 150 years we should all have crates that are below the norm :-)

The summary says: "All of this comes on top of earlier efforts from Swedish Member of the European Parliament Jens Holm, [...]"

Well, Jens Holm has not been a member of the European Parliament for half a year, and his question is almost a year old.

It would be a lot more relevant to link to the ACTA question from November of Swedish Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Christian Engström.

Why are the knee jerk politics in individual countries actually taking us backwards? According to EU legislation, the single market also applies to AudioVisual products http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/reg/tvwf/index_en.htm The single European market - one of the biggest achievements of European integration - applies to television broadcasts as much as anything else. Everybody wins broadcasters can attract larger audiences and viewers get a greater choice of channels Just as any of us is free to buy chocolate, wine or a new car in any EU country, we can also watch TV channels from all over Europe. As this is supposed to be written into member states national law by the 19th December 2009, how can the Italians actually justify their actions? They are denying people the right to download content which can be seen as legal in the light of this law. I think we can safely say that a lot of P2P activity involves TV Series that are not available outside the country of origin. For many of us, bitorrent is the only way we are able to keep up to date with TV programming from back home when living abroad. IPTV products such as the BBC iPlayer and ITV CatchUp are now in breach of EU law by limiting access to their service to the UK. P2P at least allows us to view the programming as per EU Legislation. It is oxymoronical that you have to break the law in order to be able view what is now technically legally available content.

Baby steps.
It wasn't so long ago when IE had +90% of the worldwide browser usage share. I would have had nothing against IE, if it weren't for its incompatible implementation of web standards and being Windows-only. I believe it is a crime to limit a web site access to users of a certain browser and a certain OS. Probably this is what Microsoft wanted all along, to make the WWW an extension of Windows. I experienced this first hand when some sites, like my bank, were IE-only. Luckily, for me, Wine helped a lot in breaking that barrier. This is less of an issue now, IE8 is better with standards, and the usage share of alternative browsers grew to a point that they can't be ignored.
Also the EU's latest legislation should help level the playing field. I especially like the interoperability bit, and I hope it extends to ensuring IE complies with standards and doesn't introduce proprietary extensions.

Though, unfortunately, [no attention is paid] to the economic impact of making consumers pay roaming fees if they want to take a 60-mile train ride.)

Not true. The European Union has telecom regulation put in place, putting a maximum price on any international roaming costs. [citation, ho!]

I would agree however, that it would be nice if prices were cut even further, and the EU is working on this continuously. Especially mobile data roaming prices need to be cut considerabily - even though €1/MB is cheaper than what we're used to paying for *national* mobile data (in absence of a data plan) here in Sweden. I remember being quoted 15 kr (€1.44) per MB at one point, in the absence of a data plan.

Of course, €1/MB is still very high, but it's a step in the right direction. Roaming in Europe is now merely expensive, rather than ludicrously overpriced.

[citation provided]

As is already the case with credit transfers, ATM cash withdrawals and card payments, the cost of a cross-border direct debit in euro will become the same as the cost of a national direct debit.

Each country in Europe has its own system, there is no general opt-out system at all. That is just fiction without any basis. Each country and culture has very different laws, rules and customs, and organ donations are no different.

Check out the European Union's (not Europe in general) report on organ donations:
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_threats/human_substance/oc_organs/docs/fact_figures.pdf

To quote the report: "Currently, demand for organs exceeds their availability in all EU Member States and demand increases faster than organ donation rates in most Member States".

In Europe, there's an "opt out" system with 80-90% participation.

Nonsense, there is no such thing in "Europe" because each country has its own system! Europe is not a country, not even the EU member states have central administration for transplants. You are just making things up.

You cannot possibly claim 80-90% participation when there is no European common ground on transplants. And there certainly is NO "opt out" system in Europe as a whole. There are only national systems! Your claim is an outright lie. I also checked with the European Transplant Coordinators Organisation.

Further research shows that just within the EU (27 out of 50 countries in Europe) there are wildly different figures. The Nordic countries show a high degree of willingness to donate organs, but there is still no opt-out system. In fact you absolutely have to choose to opt-in and get a donor card!

I quote from the European Union's report on organ donations: "Donation rates and transplantation activity varies widely between the Member States, ranging from 33.8 deceased donors per million of population (pmp) in Spain to 1 deceased donor per million population in Romania. Only Spain and few others Member States have succeeded in increasing significantly the number of donors. These increases are linked to the introduction of better organisational practices".

http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_threats/human_substance/oc_organs/docs/fact_figures.pdf

Boy, that Chavez really must hate democracy. Imagine getting elected by 70 percent of the population in a ballot declared 'Free And Fair' by international observers, the nerve of that guy!

In fact, Chavez loves democracy, because when it doesn't work for him he can just twist it to his wishes.

See, at the beginning he was so popular that it was easy to win elections cleanly. But now that he lost support he rigs elections, politically persecutes his opponents, or simply disregards its outcome.

In Venezuela you can't get a job in any of the state controlled companies if you have voted against Chavez.
This is a serious problem in a country where the state controls the oil industry, electric companies, banks, telecommunications and most of the media, and where all the powers are subjugated to one man's desires. After such a precedent, how can anybody expect the people to participate freely in any elections against Chavez?

Now he's promoting Free And Fair elections in other countries too? Well, we just can't have that!

I don't think that sneaking suitcases with millions of dolars of Venezuelan money to his favorite candidates in Latin America counts as promoting Free And Fair elections.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1654511,00.html
http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/11/26/en_pol_art_venezuelan-businessm_26A3120691.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maletinazo

I take it you approve of the military coup in Honduras then, with its sham elections conducted in complete violation of the country's constitution? Maybe we should just let the Pentagon decide who gets to be president of the Latin American countries again, like in Reagan's reign of error. Those people can't be trusted to elect someone who supports the interests of the multi-national mega-corps over their own citizenry like the Americans do.

I never even mentioned Honduras, in fact, I don't approve the coup, so try to keep your current job, cause mind reading is not your thing.

I think they do. 60 dB is the level that should be kept. There is a directive on rail traffic and a research initiative on noise reduction.

I think they do. 60 dB is the level that should be kept. There is a directive on rail traffic and a research initiative on noise reduction.

I think they do. 60 dB is the level that should be kept. There is a directive on rail traffic and a research initiative on noise reduction.

For a recent list see: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/index.html

Not if Switzerland implements the EU Copyright Directive.

As stated by others, we are not members of EU

Under InfoSoc Directive, this possibility would not be available since circumvention of copy protection is illegal

The law making circumvention illegal could be worded in a way which contain exception for "fair-use".

Case in point : The Swiss law,
in French and high German (sorry no english translation).
Art 39a, paragraphs 1 and 3 make it illegal to circumvent copy protection and make mean for said circumvention illegal - as in InfoSoc Directive.
*BUT* paragraph 4 states that this interdiction doesn't apply to people circumventing protection to make lawful usage of the media.
(So in Switzerland, it is Ok to break BlueRay's AACS and BD+ protection when trying to play a BlueRay movie on Linux, because these protections stay in the way to legally use the movie)

In the case of the EU, there's still some controversies, because InfoSoc tries to define a strict list of such exceptions.

Nonetheless, this guys' usage follow the exception 2.b (private copies) and 3.o (pre-existing law - such as "fair-use" exceptions of copyright law) of article 5 of InfoSoc.

20years is few?

That money isn't for climate research, it is for ALL environmental research, including tons on sustainable practices and conservation stuff. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/environment/about-env_en.html#what

You know what, [citation needed] for your whole damn post.

The US are a debt addict. Their luck is that their debt dealer, China, only has one customer.

Not at all. Europe has lost jobs to China too. China exports to Europe, not just the US. The European Commission says "China is the single most important challenge for EU trade policy. China has re-emerged as the world's fourth economy and third exporter, but also an increasingly important political power. EU-China trade has increased dramatically in recent years. China is now the EU's 2nd trading partner behind the USA and the biggest source of imports. The EU is China's biggest trading partner."

Falcon

Inspiration for the symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon () - a reference to the cradle of European civilisation - and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to 'certify' the stability of the euro.

Straight from the horse's mouth.

The single-stroke $-sign OTOH might just as well be an 8:

That the dollar sign is derived from a slash through the numeral eight, denoting pieces of eight. The Oxford English Dictionary before 1963 held that this was the most probable explanation, though later editions have placed it in doubt.

according to wikipedia [citation needed].

If this was true it would herald a major crisis for derogatory spelling worldwide. I propose a conference to establish new and reliable standards (.) that provide sustainable ways to express our unstillable rage (..) and call attention to the seriousness of the offenses (...) committed by mega-corps (*gasping for air*) in one handy typographical sign.