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We are speaking here about the Council of the EU, which owns co-decision power along with the Parliament of the EU (with historically more power to the Council until the Lisbon treaty is ratified). There is a lesser known "European Council" which gives orientations, but it is not the subject of this article.

This should be helpful for you:

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2008/october/tradoc_140836.11.08.pdf

There is not European Department of Justice. The correct translation is European Court of Justice.

However, that's the correct translation but still wrong. The judgement was not made by the Court of Justice but by the Court of First Instance. Lego can still appeal to the Court of Justice.

This is the final judgment of an appeal brough by Lego against the earlier judgment. http://curia.europa.eu/jurisp/cgi-bin/form.pl?lang=EN&Submit=Rechercher$docrequire=alldocs&numaff=T-270/06&datefs=&datefe=&nomusuel=&domaine=&mots=&resmax=100

K.

The decision can be consulted in English as well at the ECJ's website: http://curia.europa.eu/

(and Lego hasn't had such exclusive right for quite a while...)

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
Article 4:

Article 4

Exceptions

1. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine the protection of:

(a) the public interest as regards:

- public security,

- defence and military matters,

- international relations,

- the financial, monetary or economic policy of the Community or a Member State;

(b) privacy and the integrity of the individual, in particular in accordance with Community legislation regarding the protection of personal data.

2. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine the protection of:

- commercial interests of a natural or legal person, including intellectual property,

- court proceedings and legal advice,

- the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits,

unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

3. Access to a document, drawn up by an institution for internal use or received by an institution, which relates to a matter where the decision has not been taken by the institution, shall be refused if disclosure of the document would seriously undermine the institution's decision-making process, unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

Access to a document containing opinions for internal use as part of deliberations and preliminary consultations within the institution concerned shall be refused even after the decision has been taken if disclosure of the document would seriously undermine the institution's decision-making process, unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

4. As regards third-party documents, the institution shall consult the third party with a view to assessing whether an exception in paragraph 1 or 2 is applicable, unless it is clear that the document shall or shall not be disclosed.

5. A Member State may request the institution not to disclose a document originating from that Member State without its prior agreement.

6. If only parts of the requested document are covered by any of the exceptions, the remaining parts of the document shall be released.

7. The exceptions as laid down in paragraphs 1 to 3 shall only apply for the period during which protection is justified on the basis of the content of the document. The exceptions may apply for a maximum period of 30 years. In the case of documents covered by the exceptions relating to privacy or commercial interests and in the case of sensitive documents, the exceptions may, if necessary, continue to apply after this period.

the right of governments to decide what they make public and not

No, it is not.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E255:EN:HTML

the right of governments to decide what they make public and not

No, it is not.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E255:EN:HTML

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML

Article 255
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E255:EN:HTML

Article 255

1. Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, subject to the principles and the conditions to be defined in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3.

2. General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.

3. Each institution referred to above shall elaborate in its own Rules of Procedure specific provisions regarding access to its documents.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML

Article 255
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12002E255:EN:HTML

Article 255

1. Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, subject to the principles and the conditions to be defined in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3.

2. General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.

3. Each institution referred to above shall elaborate in its own Rules of Procedure specific provisions regarding access to its documents.

Same in the EU:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001R1049:EN:HTML

This was interestingly the case he, Capatto asked whether also about the open source study that was withdrawn. The Council says it had no copy and he should rather go to the historic archives in Luxembourg. That is odd.

"...has not keep any copy of the Study. The Secretariat general suggests to ask a copy to the interistututional committee on informatics' archives."

Marco Capatto is also pro-Free Software

And other MEPs are asking questions as well: Georgios Papastamkos (PPE-DE) to the Commission: Commission's procurement of computer software

This was interestingly the case he, Capatto asked whether also about the open source study that was withdrawn. The Council says it had no copy and he should rather go to the historic archives in Luxembourg. That is odd.

"...has not keep any copy of the Study. The Secretariat general suggests to ask a copy to the interistututional committee on informatics' archives."

Marco Capatto is also pro-Free Software

And other MEPs are asking questions as well: Georgios Papastamkos (PPE-DE) to the Commission: Commission's procurement of computer software

The odd thing is that Cappato is a member of parliament. The legal base is EC/1049/2001 which grants citizens (and foreigners) a right of access to all EU documents (cmp. Art 255 EU Treaty)

Exceptions ...
2. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine the protection of:

- commercial interests of a natural or legal person, including intellectual property,

- court proceedings and legal advice,

- the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits,

unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

Of course a request by an MEP can be perceived as an indication that there is indeed a public interest. And a public contract is probably nothing which affects the "commercial interests" of an external enterprise, you would rather insist on full transparency.

Article 2

Beneficiaries and scope

1. Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, has a right of access to documents of the institutions, subject to the principles, conditions and limits defined in this Regulation.

2. The institutions may, subject to the same principles, conditions and limits, grant access to documents to any natural or legal person not residing or not having its registered office in a Member State.

3. This Regulation shall apply to all documents held by an institution, that is to say, documents drawn up or received by it and in its possession, in all areas of activity of the European Union.

4. Without prejudice to Articles 4 and 9, documents shall be made accessible to the public either following a written application or directly in electronic form or through a register. In particular, documents drawn up or received in the course of a legislative procedure shall be made directly accessible in accordance with Article 12. ...

Article 3

Definitions

For the purpose of this Regulation:

(a) "document" shall mean any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording) concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions falling within the institution's sphere of responsibility;

Have a look at the Document register of the Council

The odd thing is that Cappato is a member of parliament. The legal base is EC/1049/2001 which grants citizens (and foreigners) a right of access to all EU documents (cmp. Art 255 EU Treaty)

Exceptions ...
2. The institutions shall refuse access to a document where disclosure would undermine the protection of:

- commercial interests of a natural or legal person, including intellectual property,

- court proceedings and legal advice,

- the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits,

unless there is an overriding public interest in disclosure.

Of course a request by an MEP can be perceived as an indication that there is indeed a public interest. And a public contract is probably nothing which affects the "commercial interests" of an external enterprise, you would rather insist on full transparency.

Article 2

Beneficiaries and scope

1. Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, has a right of access to documents of the institutions, subject to the principles, conditions and limits defined in this Regulation.

2. The institutions may, subject to the same principles, conditions and limits, grant access to documents to any natural or legal person not residing or not having its registered office in a Member State.

3. This Regulation shall apply to all documents held by an institution, that is to say, documents drawn up or received by it and in its possession, in all areas of activity of the European Union.

4. Without prejudice to Articles 4 and 9, documents shall be made accessible to the public either following a written application or directly in electronic form or through a register. In particular, documents drawn up or received in the course of a legislative procedure shall be made directly accessible in accordance with Article 12. ...

Article 3

Definitions

For the purpose of this Regulation:

(a) "document" shall mean any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording) concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions falling within the institution's sphere of responsibility;

Have a look at the Document register of the Council

When has the European Parliament and the public interest ever coincided?

Hum let me think ...
When it voted against the 3-strikes law for downloaders?
When it voted against software patents?
When it voted for restrictions on the use of radioactive weapons?
The EU Parliament can really hardly be criticized, except for the fact that it doesn't have that much power, which in my opinion is a real pity. Go troll elsewhere.

the Council acts moreless like the House of Representatives, however it is not elected (the EU Parliament is) - it is sometimes called the Council of Ministers, as it is only composed by ministers ("secretary of states" if you want) of each 27 countries of the EU.

On a more general note, this is a bit a lot of fuss about not much. The EU Council does sometimes act in strange ways, but this is not enough for me to lose the trust I have in the other two big EU institution (the Commission and the Parliament)

For those curious people among you, here's the Parliament page of Marco CAPPATO
I particularly appreciate reading the "Parliamentary activities" of my MEPs (check the bottom of the page).

it is democratic as long as the people doing the negociations are democraticly elected. That is called representative democracy. "We the people" can punish the leaders if they f- up by not re-electing them.

No, that's not how the Dutch or other European democracies work. We have a system whereby you have a government and a parliament (with one or two chambers). While both the people in parliament and in the government are democratically elected, the job of the parliament is to scrutinise the government. It's all part of the checks and balances.

The problem with the ACTA is that the national parliaments have no access whatsoever to the texts under negotiation, and hence are unable to perform their jobs as representatives of the other citizens.

It is this leaking that shifts the balance away from the electoral result, So actually i believe that leaking does more harm to the democratic process than the fact that they do it behind closed doors.

That's only true if you believe that a representative democracy means that you "cast your vote and then forget about everything". That's a very naive and unrealistic view. Voting is only a part (but an important one) of what is necessary to make a representative democracy work.

Constant scrutiny and input from the general public is desirable and I dare say required to keep things functioning properly. After all, the people in government and parliament are not supposed to and cannot rule from an ivory tower, just decreeing what is "best for the populace", without any external input.

They are elected to represent us, but that does not mean that from that point on they will automatically always possess all necessary knowledge to decide about anything that matters. They regularly have to inform themselves about topics they don't know everything about.

So how should they inform themselves? By looking at studies and talking to experts. Studies are written by people and experts are also people. Inevitably, you are going to get some bias. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that they get input from an as broad as possible group of people so that they get an as complete as possible picture (rather than just the picture that one or other special interest group wants them to see).

Hence, public scrutiny and awareness about what is going on is of paramount importance to avoid lock-ins by special interest groups. That doesn't mean it is easy to avoid this, but it is a necessary precondition.

The European Court of Justice recently still stressed the importance of openness in law making in its ruling in the Turco case:

Openness in that respect contributes to strengthening democracy by allowing citizens to scrutinize all the information which has formed the basis of a legislative act. The possibility for citizens to find out the considerations underpinning legislative action is a precondition for the effective exercise of their democratic rights.

It's much easier that way. Certainly the NSA has been known to monitor communications between Airbus and its customers in order to give Boeing a competitive advantage; a $6bn contract with the Saudis was lost when American spies found out about some backhanders Airbus had been paying to officials there. They've also been known to forward technical details of European inventions to American firms in order to get the patent first. There's quite a history of Americans using state spying agencies for industrial espionage, and so it's natural that they assume that everybody else is doing the same to them.

And when they've achieved their goals how will they feel when the next superpower does them the same way?

It's not like the current superpower doesn't use "cyber warfare" to obtain technology transfer and market dominance (search for "Published cases".

There's nothing really new here, except for possibly some alternate methodologies.

On the other hand you have the socialist/protectionist model, where the market is severely constrained to fit a social/ideological agenda. This results in high prices, low productivity, high unemployment, and stagnation. On the other hand, it's stable, and there is less fear of living in a cardboard box.

This sounds very much like most Americans' description of Western Europe. Yet, unemployment rate is 7.5% in The Euro area Source: ECB, which is not very different from the US figure (6.1%) Source: St. Louis FED. By the way, the definition of unemployment is quite different (some people who would be considered unemployed by EU standards wouldn't be by US statistical conventions).

... Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has claimed that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. If he wasn't trying to sow doubt amongst enterprises as to the long term viability of Linux, why would he do such a thing? Lets also not forget Microsoft's aid in arranging funding for SCO. So, while Microsoft hasn't gone after anyone directly for patent issues, they've certainly done so indirectly.

I have read through many of the documents, especially the EU Ct. of 1st Instance: Microsoft Abused its Dominant Position - Updated This link has the not only the conversation after the court decision but links to videos and a recording of the conversation (Sean Daly, Georg Greve of FSFE, Jeremy Allison and Volker Lendecke of Samba, and Carlo Piana, their lawyer of record in the case) so you can here it in their words. Thank you for posting the link!

Microsoft's blue and green bubble defense is laughable and fortunately for all of us, at least the EU courts saw through it. It is telling that Microsoft's lawyer submitted 258 pages only about one hour before the case for review and that per Volker Lendecke, Microsoft deliberately muddied the waters with the term intellectual property in such a way that it was not clear whether they were talking about copyrights or patents or what. Very telling and sadly not surprising.

To think of those companies that actually got scared and agreed to settle with Microsoft, per Georg Greve, to the tune of ($3.6 million for Sun, Novell, REal and CCIA who were all bought out of the case). And how about those companies that actually bought worthless coupons out of fear of being sued, from Novell. Talk about a waste of money and we are not talking thousands or millions, but billions. In the first six months, Novell sold coupons to such marquee clients as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, AIG Technologies, HSBC, Wal-Mart, Dell and Reed Elsevier have all acquired Novell Linux coupons from Microsoft."

If I were they, I think I would want my money back.

I find it interesting that Thomas Vinje, actually stated that "if you think about any of these markets, who were the innovators? Novell was the innovator. Novell created singlhandedly the workgroup server market. It was taken away from them by the monopoly." Real created streaming media, innovating and creating the streaming media market and they're gone now, at least fewer people use it these days. Netscape and browsers...of course there are many others.

Yes excellent article thanks for posting! It will be interesting to see how many of the companies that have outstanding court cases with Microsoft might try to force them to an earlier resolution now...I for one will not hold my breath.

Direct economic impact of FLOSS

The existing base of quality FLOSS applications with reasonable quality control and distribution would cost firms almost Euro 12 billion to reproduce internally. This code base has been doubling every 18-24 months over the past eight years, and this growth is projected to continue for several more years.

This existing base of FLOSS software represents a lower bound of about 131 000 real person-years of effort that has been devoted exclusively by programmers. As this is mostly by individuals not directly paid for development, it represents a significant gap in national accounts of productivity. Annualised and adjusted for growth this represents at least Euro 800 million in voluntary contribution from programmers alone each year, of which nearly half are based in Europe.

Firms have invested an estimated Euro 1.2 billion in developing FLOSS software that is made freely available. Such firms represent in total at least 565 000 jobs and Euro 263 billion in annual revenue. Contributing firms are from several non-IT (but often ICT intensive) sectors, and tend to have much higher revenues than non-contributing firms.

Defined broadly, FLOSS-related services could reach a 32% share of all IT services by 2010, and the FLOSS-related share of the economy could reach 4% of European GDP by 2010. FLOSS directly supports the 29% share of software that is developed in-house in the EU (43% in the U.S.), and provides the natural model for software development for the secondary software sector.

I do love exaggeration on occasion, but if anything those were gross understatements.

You obviously haven't seen the EU regulations! They are here and vary by animal. For cattle it is 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit)(with 5 degrees leeway).

Sheriff Joe Arpaio keeps inmates in tents in temperatures allegedly up to 138 degrees F (58 degrees Celsius). That is considerably worse!

As for FPMITA prison, that comes up every single time prison is mentioned on Slashdot, I am assuming primarily from Americans. It also is one of the most archetypal themes in US male-on-male porn films, unlike in the EU.

But it also threatens permanent hearing loss for as many as 10 million Europeans who use them, according to a scientific study for the European Union that will be published Monday.

I don't know if this is the report but the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) released a report on this in June [PDF Warning!]. It's not as long as it looks, about a quarter of the pages are citations to other studies. It looks quite comprehensive. It's important to note that this is not a simple thing to study. The report points out several times that your age and daily exposure and anatomical structure all play an important role in what you can tolerate before experiencing hearing loss.

The abstract from that report:

Exposure to excessive noise is a major cause of hearing disorders worldwide. It is attributed to occupational noise. Besides noise at workplaces, which may contribute to 16% of the disabling hearing loss in adults, loud sounds at leisure times may reach excessive levels for instance in discos and personal music players (PMPs). It is estimated that over two decades the numbers of young people with social noise exposure has tripled (to around 19%) since the early 1980s, whilst occupational noise had decreased. The increase in unit sales of portable audio devices including MP3 has been phenomenal in the EU over the last four years. Estimated units sales ranged between 184-246 million for all portable audio devices and between 124-165 million for MP3 players.

Noise-induced hearing loss is the product of sound level by duration of exposure. In order to counteract noise-induced hearing loss more effectively, a European directive "Noise at Work Regulations" taking effect starting February 2006, established the minimal security level at the equivalent noise exposure limit to 80 dB(A) for an 8 hour working day (or 40 hour working week), assuming that below this level the risk to hearing is negligible. The 8-hour equivalent level (Lequ,8h) is a widely used measure for the risk of hearing damage in industry, and can equally be applied to leisure noise exposures. The free-field equivalent sound pressure levels measured at maximum volume control setting of PMPs range around 80-115 dB(A) across different devices, and differences between different types of ear-phones may modify this level by up to 7-9 dB. The mean time of exposure ranges from below 1 hour to 14 hours a week.

Considering the daily (or weekly) time spent on listening to music through PMPs and typical volume control settings it has been estimated that the average, A-weighted, eight hour equivalent sound exposures levels (referred to "Noise at Work Regulations") from PMPs typically range from 75 to 85 dB(A). Such levels produce minimal risk of hearing impairment for the majority of PMP users. However, approximately 5% - 10% of the listeners are at high risk due to the levels patterns and duration of their listening preferences. The best estimate from the limited data we have available suggests that this maybe between 2.5 and 10m people in EU. Those are the individuals listening to music over 1 hour a day at high volume control setting.

Excessive noise can damage several cell types in the ear and lead to tinnitus, temporary or permanent hearing loss (deafness). Published data indicate that excessive acute exposures to PMPs music at maximal or near maximal output volume can produce temporary and reversible hearing impairment (tinnitus and slight deafness). Major discrepancies exist between the results of the studies on permanent noise-induced hearing loss in PMP users, with both, positive and negative studies published. Tinnitus and hearing fatigue may occur more frequently in teenagers chronically exposed to music, including PMP users, than in non-users.

In addition to auditory effects harmful, lasting and irreversible non-a

In the EU Patrizia Toia recently got a similar report adopted by the European Parliament.

29. Encourages Member States to recognise the social, cultural and economic value of allowing unlicensed users access to the dividend, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises and the not-for-profit sector, and thus increase the efficiency of spectrum use by concentrating such unlicensed uses in the currently unused frequencies (white spaces);

30. Calls for a step-by-step approach in this field; is of the opinion that effects for smaller networks - especially local wireless networks - for which no license requirements currently apply must be taken into account and that universal access to broadband, especially in rural areas, should be promoted;

31. Calls on Member States to support enhanced cooperation measures between spectrum management authorities to consider areas where unlicensed white space spectrum allocation would allow new technologies and services to emerge so as to foster innovation;

32. Encourages Member States to consider, in the context of allocating white space, the needs for unlicensed open access to spectrum by non-commercial and educational service providers and local communities which are driven by a public service mission; ...

43. Supports a common and balanced approach to the use of digital dividend, allowing both broadcasters to continue offering and expanding their services and electronic communications operators to use this resource to deploy new services addressing other important social and economic uses, but stresses that in any case the digital dividend should be allocated on a technology-neutral basis;

44. Stresses that spectrum policy needs to be dynamic and must enable broadcasters and communications operators to employ new technologies and develop new services, allowing them to continue to play a key role in achieving the objectives of cultural and media policy, while also providing new high-quality communications services;

45. Stresses the potential benefits in terms of economies of scale, innovation, interoperability and the provision of potential pan-European services of a more coherent and integrated spectrum planning at Community level; encourages Member States to work together and with the Commission to identify common spectrum sub-bands of the digital dividend for different application clusters that could be harmonised on a technology-neutral basis;

46. Believes that clustering within the UHF band should be based on a bottom-up approach according to the specifics of the national markets while ensuring that harmonisation at community level takes places wherever this creates a clear added value;

47. In order to achieve a more efficient use of spectrum and to facilitate the emergence of innovative and successful national, cross-border and pan-European services, supports a coordinated approach at Community level , based on different clusters of the UHF spectrum for uni-directional and bi-directional services, taking into account the potential for harmful interference arising from the co-existence of different types of networks in the same band, the outcomes of the ITU Geneva RRC 06 and WRC 07 and the existing authorisations; ...

51. Requests the Commission to conduct a study on conflicts between users of open source software and certification authorities concerning software defined radios;

52. Asks the Commission to propose steps for a reduction of legal liabilities in the context of wireless mesh network provision;

In the EU the problem is the same. It is a mess to link EU documents, so the best thing you can do is to mirror them.

The European access to documents directive is undergoing a recast procedure. Further an Italian MEP just released a draft report for the annual report on document access. All members of the LIBE Committee can make a difference.

While this sort of legislation really makes high impact there are only few persons who care about this field and follow the legislation. Your chance to get involved, become a freeourdocuments nerd and make a difference! All you need is a wiki and collect all the stuff.

If you are interested in the matter UK based statewatch is a good information source to understand what is going on.

In the EU the problem is the same. It is a mess to link EU documents, so the best thing you can do is to mirror them.

The European access to documents directive is undergoing a recast procedure. Further an Italian MEP just released a draft report for the annual report on document access. All members of the LIBE Committee can make a difference.

While this sort of legislation really makes high impact there are only few persons who care about this field and follow the legislation. Your chance to get involved, become a freeourdocuments nerd and make a difference! All you need is a wiki and collect all the stuff.

If you are interested in the matter UK based statewatch is a good information source to understand what is going on.

Yes, so it is time that governments insist on the conditions offered and codify "open standards". Read this letter to the EU from 2004.

Come on. The United States is still the largest democracy.

But the point is that net neutrality is indeed an American issue. It was not the first time that an issue was raised and turned down by the lobby but net neutrality is very proactive. It is like an open source preference and Microsoft starts to lobby against it and then you complain that you don't get it. It gets stronger as the lobby fights against it.

Net neutrality is the dominant pratice worldwide. Do we need to codify it? ...no But could be fun to keep the Telco lobby busy.

The Europeans explicitly endorsed the net neutrality this month in the forward looking Toia report.

technological neutrality is key to the promotion of interoperability and essential to a more flexible and transparent digital switchover policy for the consideration of the public interest,

Europeans don't have a real net neutrality debate but it sounds good, so politicians adopt it.

According to the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, it's the data subject's data.

I hate this document. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea that the government wants to protect its citizens' data, but as a person in charge of ensuring a medical data application's compliance with this document, plus all the member state's unique flavors - I'm looking at you Spain. I have nightmares when I'm talking to the lawyers that are used to 'roughly' interpreting the data handling policies in the US and think they can continue their 'rough' interpretations in countries that have actually passed privacy legislation.

Why don't you just contact your national antitrust department? E.g. in Europe we have a simple consumer form.

Despite all the Apple hype their platform is the most proprietary. A golden cage.

ACTA is TRIPs+. Who wants to understand what it is really about should read the Susta draft report of the European Parliament Trade Committee.

EU law mandates a minimum 2 year warranty on most goods sold to consumers. It seems insane to me that you could buy a new bit of electronics in the US and have no recourse after it dies after 5 months!

See Wikipedia and Europa itself.

It seems like your operator is breaking the rules, or at least being very, very creative in its interpretation of them. You may wish to complain, referencing the act (EC 717/2007).

The imposition of caps was probably necessary, but not very market friendly. I admired the compulsory information sharing because it's very market-savvy.

If someone sends information to Google, Google is not legally responsible for it.

I'm going to stop you right there, because in some jurisdictions that just isn't true. See, for example, the European Commission web site on data protection.

If you go and read the documents there, they helpfully spell out the basics in a downloadable guide, together with citations of relevant European directives and related provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights that underpin some of these measures, and various specific requirements imposed by different European nations in this area.

You might like to read the section "When can personal data be processed?" on page 7 of the guide. Note in particular that the final point is the only one that conceivably applies to a service such as Google's, and they explicitly note that "this interest cannot override the interests or fundamental rights of the data subject, particularly the right to privacy". There also mechanisms described for dealing with transfers to areas that have inadequate data protection regulations (which the US clearly is, for this purpose) up to and including imposing an EU-wide ban on data transfers that are non-compliant as a last resort.

And incidentally, all the DMCA/safe habour stuff you keep mentioning is irrelevant to this discussion. The potential legal problems with Google's service aren't because of copyright infringement in this case.

If someone sends information to Google, Google is not legally responsible for it.

I'm going to stop you right there, because in some jurisdictions that just isn't true. See, for example, the European Commission web site on data protection.

If you go and read the documents there, they helpfully spell out the basics in a downloadable guide, together with citations of relevant European directives and related provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights that underpin some of these measures, and various specific requirements imposed by different European nations in this area.

You might like to read the section "When can personal data be processed?" on page 7 of the guide. Note in particular that the final point is the only one that conceivably applies to a service such as Google's, and they explicitly note that "this interest cannot override the interests or fundamental rights of the data subject, particularly the right to privacy". There also mechanisms described for dealing with transfers to areas that have inadequate data protection regulations (which the US clearly is, for this purpose) up to and including imposing an EU-wide ban on data transfers that are non-compliant as a last resort.

And incidentally, all the DMCA/safe habour stuff you keep mentioning is irrelevant to this discussion. The potential legal problems with Google's service aren't because of copyright infringement in this case.

If you consdier the German speaking world you will want a Master's. I am sure people will argue about this here, but in that part of Europe the Bachelor's concept is relatively new, and most people you will be competing against have a Diplom. A Diplom is a Master's in the United States and if you want to maximize your job opportunites you will want one. They take academic titles much more seriously in Europe than the US, and it isn't unusual for people to be called by their title and not their name. Also don't be surprised if they ask for things like Leaving Reports from previous jobs, your transcripts from school, and of course your C.V.

For the C.V. it is standard practice to require information that is illegal to ask about in the United States. It will have your date of birth, photograph, gender and what not. For an example try the Europass CV.

I suggest you pick a country, and start taking formal or informal language and cultural courses. I chose German because I felt it offered the best tech opportunites in Europe, and access to all or part of three countries. Try and plan a semester abroad or a summer in the country you think will suit you. Honestly, nothing will motivate you to slog it through the hard part of moving somewhere new, and get you past the depressing fact that you can't communicate. A friend of mine in Vienna said, "I spent almost two years not being funny." Which for her was a big deal because her humor is a big part of who she is.

People have a completely different lifestyle and expectations in Europe, when compared to the US. I really suggest you prepare yourself mentally for a severe lifestyle change. For example the first word we learned in German for a place to live was apartment, not house. They don't buy as much, they eat at home a lot more, you probably won't own a car, food is going to be different, and in general if you haven't been to europe for longer than two weeks you are going to encounter culture shock.

Last but not least you are going to want to set up a home base in the country you are going to live in. Try and hoarde cash, you want to save about 4-5 thousand Euros. You are going to want to live in Europe while looking for a job there. Find a flat mate that will let you live there cheap and start applying around. Newspapers are still a big source of job offers so just scour their websites. Once you get there and are looking for a job you should really get out and try to meet people in your field.

According to the European and thier language report German is the 2nd highest known language in the EU at 32% of the population speaking the language. Spanish is at 15% and is 5th.
For the top 5 it is:
English 51%
German 32%
French 26%
Italian 16%
Spanish 15%

Also by mother tounue German is at 18% and Spanish is at 9%

I still find it really funny when people use "socialism" as a bad word. I rather enjoy living in a socialist democracy with a lot of personal freedom, but at the same time having a part of my income taken and various controls in place for the betterment of everyone (including me). It generally means I don't have to put up with homeless bums begging change from me at every street corner; know that if I need it, there's medical attention for me; and live in a society where the vast majority of people very satisfied with their lives in general. I compare this to the last place I lived, which was decidedly "free market" oriented, where I constantly had bums begging for change, had to pay for every doctor visit, and had to constantly listen to the bitching and whining of people around me about how crappy life was. Something that people against socialism just don't seem to get is that by improving the lives of others, you are directly improving your own life by not having to deal with "the dregs of society" anymore (as those dregs are all elevated up by your contributions) - that's WELL worth paying for (and can't work on an individual choice basis, because most people would choose not to, and then complain about it anyway - reference, the last place I lived)

Give me well planned socialism any day.

Does anyone know if there's something like the Eurobarometer surveys comparing the US states as well as European countries? I was recently reading this (warning: PDF link), and would love to see the US states listed there as well to see comparisons.

FireFury03 wrote:

No, it doesn't - it provides access to people who purchased a product from one specific vendor - namely Windows from Microsoft.

And as much as Bliar appears to like to pretend that the UK is the 51st state, it is still in the EU. Here is what the European Commissioner for Competition Policy, Neelie Kroes, has to say on the topic:

Here's what the European Commission has to say:

And to top it off, here's what the UK government itself has to say about it:

In short, the BBC is indefensibly wrong to lock people into proprietary standards and systems and all the more so in regards to MS cruft, given MS legal standing in the EU.

FireFury03 wrote:

Saying "to receive BBC TV you need to have a TV receiver" is fine, but "to receive BBC TV you need to have a TV receiver manufactured by Sony" (for example) is not.

Fortunately even politicians are waking up and less and less turning a blind eye towards anything hidden under the label "computer".

It might be wise to point out that this is probably key to the unveiling of 802.11p support in cars. Now with some official permission, manufacturers can get a move on with some decent systems integration. Maybe we'll soon have road furniture that broadcasts DGPS correction data to passing cars, in order for them to have extremely accurate maps of important signage that the computer systems would be interested in. Equally so, roadside furniture could flash over maps of nearby intersections to vehicles, so that they can automatically navigate them with a little more ease. We can but dream...

I block all the /. script and ads anyway. So I guess I am unethical. And so are people who use the Tivo to skip commercials.

Unethical is not necessarily illegal. There is no law requiring you to load advertisements or watch commercials. You might want to do so in order to provide some revenue to a site you enjoy but that's up to you. However, in this case there are relevant legal claims to be judged.

Using the airline's website in this manner is not only illegal....

Now IANAL, but I am reasonably certain it's not. The information on the public Internet and viewable to anyone. It's no more illegal that Best Buy sending 'competitive secret shoppers' to the local Circuit City so they can match their prices. As long as these site are not misrepresenting themselves (i.e. posing as customers, giving fake CC data), I don't see how the law would have any issues with it.

According to the case at hand, the relevant bit of law is:
Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases

I'm not saying that I agree with the use of this directive in this manner, but it is a close enough fit use as a basis for suing the third party websites.

...but it also causes a lot of slowdowns and other problems for the people who actually go to the airline's website.

So can googlebot or any other app that crawls your site. The 3rd party brokers would have to be sending massive requests to the airline server to make any significant difference. And they very well may be doing just that. But any rookie sysadmin could easily block those request if they became a problem.

True, I'm just repeating what was claimed in the article as one of the reasons they are against the third party websites. Again this is something for a court to determine its veracity. If the sites are doing this then there is a good case that they are causing damage to the airline through their actions.

Remember that there are costs associated with running the airline's web site. Those costs are probably borne by the additional revenue of the other services offered on that website. The third parties are using the website and bypassing the extra items that fund the site, causing the airline to lose money. Eventually the customers, the third party sites, and the airline will all lose out when the airline is forced to severely lock down or close the website and sue for damages.

Bull.

There is a specific exception for "caching only" both in US and EU law. See 512(b) of the DMCA and Article 13 of Directive 2000/31/EC

Look again. They (Norway) are only bound by some of them and more importantly, they only have to make laws resembling the EU's. They don't have to adopt EU laws. They are in no way required to impose the energy tax like the one the EU did in 2003 nor do they have to impose all of the laws. But more importantly, the energy tax was an environmental move not a EEA action to which norway would be obligated to.

From the Site you linked to, "As a counterpart, these countries have to adopt part of the Law of the European Union."

Again - for any meaningful comparison, the prices should have been PPP adjusted and the prices did not include any taxes. As I have tried to point out, countries bound by the same regulation and accessing the same market should have the same prices. As the prices differ by 400%, the price effect you can see by regulation must then be dwarfed by other factors (whatever that may be).

First, the DOE report did include taxes. The Spot price calculations are wholesale prices and don't need taxes at that point. And no, you don't need to adjust for PPP in this sense because we are comparing the effects of regulation. If the EU is the same dollar value, and PPP isn't somewhat equal already, then unfair advantages exist in the EU.

Anyways, as you can see here, costs vary within the EU. also, as seen here, There are tariffs in the open market to recover lines charges and so on. That report breaks down several brackets for the tariffs and as you can see, importing electricity from different markets can change the costs enormously.

Look again. They (Norway) are only bound by some of them and more importantly, they only have to make laws resembling the EU's. They don't have to adopt EU laws. They are in no way required to impose the energy tax like the one the EU did in 2003 nor do they have to impose all of the laws. But more importantly, the energy tax was an environmental move not a EEA action to which norway would be obligated to.

From the Site you linked to, "As a counterpart, these countries have to adopt part of the Law of the European Union."

Again - for any meaningful comparison, the prices should have been PPP adjusted and the prices did not include any taxes. As I have tried to point out, countries bound by the same regulation and accessing the same market should have the same prices. As the prices differ by 400%, the price effect you can see by regulation must then be dwarfed by other factors (whatever that may be).

First, the DOE report did include taxes. The Spot price calculations are wholesale prices and don't need taxes at that point. And no, you don't need to adjust for PPP in this sense because we are comparing the effects of regulation. If the EU is the same dollar value, and PPP isn't somewhat equal already, then unfair advantages exist in the EU.

Anyways, as you can see here, costs vary within the EU. also, as seen here, There are tariffs in the open market to recover lines charges and so on. That report breaks down several brackets for the tariffs and as you can see, importing electricity from different markets can change the costs enormously.

PDF was mentioned in this interesting, now 5 years old, advisory Valoris report (as PDF, of course ;-)).

I can really recommend this as it shows how much strife and conflict we've all had the past 5 years, and how much is at stake :-/

Apparently, the next version of the European Interoperability Framework is in the making, and these months you can post public comments. So if you think UOF should be adopted by European governments, now's your chance :-)

The draft document is at this location, and probably chapter 8 is most relevant for us Slashdotters. Note MS = Member States and PEGSCO = IDABC management committee (nothing to do with SCO).

PDF was mentioned in this interesting, now 5 years old, advisory Valoris report (as PDF, of course ;-)).

I can really recommend this as it shows how much strife and conflict we've all had the past 5 years, and how much is at stake :-/

Apparently, the next version of the European Interoperability Framework is in the making, and these months you can post public comments. So if you think UOF should be adopted by European governments, now's your chance :-)

The draft document is at this location, and probably chapter 8 is most relevant for us Slashdotters. Note MS = Member States and PEGSCO = IDABC management committee (nothing to do with SCO).

It was worth citing the claim, I'll take that beer now. :-P

It was worth citing the claim, I'll take that beer now. :-P