Stories from Abroad

All 2.2 billion people who use Facebook will soon see changes to their privacy settings, in response to a sweeping new privacy law in Europe — but American users won't see exactly the same thing as their European counterparts.

The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reaching conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to Donald Trump.  The complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the computer networks of the Democratic Party and disseminating stolen material found ther

Facebook has quietly altered its terms of service, making stricter Irish data protection laws no longer binding on the vast majority of its users. Now, Facebook’s headquarters in California will be responsible for processing any relevant legal claims, and American law will be binding for those outside the European Union.

Facebook has moved more than 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law, despite a promise from Mark Zuckerberg to apply the “spirit” of the legislation globally. In a tweak to its terms and conditions, Facebook is shifting the responsibility for all users outside the US, Canada and the European Union from its international HQ in Ireland to its main offices in California. It means that those users will now be on a site governed by US law rather than Irish law.

On April 12th, the Irish High Court elevated a series of questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ, the Supreme Court of the European Union) regarding the validity of key legal instruments used by American tech companies to process Europeans’ personal data. Judge Caroline Costello of the Irish High Court is concerned about the national surveillance practices of the United States and the level of privacy rights observed there.

The US blocked Chinese telecommunications-gear maker ZTE Corp. from exporting sensitive technology from America, alleging the company made false statements to US officials.  The Commerce Department has determined ZTE made false statements to the Bureau of Industry and Security in 2016 and 2017 related to “senior employee disciplinary actions the company said it was taking or had already taken,” the department said.

Technology companies are readying themselves for sweeping new privacy rules that go into effect in May 2018 across the European Union. They could face billion-dollar fines if they fail to give European users far more control over their personal information. Whether the US Congress follows the European model, as some lawmakers floated, or whether big tech companies determine it’s too cumbersome to treat the 500 million people of the EU differently from the rest of the world, Europe is likely to keep setting the global pace for aggressive regulation.

A businessman has won his legal action to remove search results about a criminal conviction in a landmark “right to be forgotten” case that could have wide-ranging repercussions. The ruling was made by Justice Warby in London. The judge rejected a similar claim brought by a second businessman who was jailed for a more serious offence. The claimant who lost, referred to only as NT1 for legal reasons, was convicted of conspiracy to account falsely in the late 1990s; the claimant who won, known as NT2, was convicted more than 10 years ago of conspiracy to intercept communications.

This paper critically reviews the ‘participation society’ inspired policy measures of two Dutch provinces (Drenthe and Groningen) for providing rural broadband. Based on a database with broadband initiatives, interviews with stakeholders, focus groups and document analysis, it analyzes how rural broadband initiatives and regional governments interact in their ventures to provide superfast broadband to rural communities.

Europe’s new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will enter into force in May 2018. Understandably, given that data breaches and privacy violations have been in the headlines lately -- and given that the GDPR will reshuffle privacy protection in Europe and beyond -- many in the United States are looking to the GDPR for ideas of what to do - and what not to do. We think that it would be impractical and ineffective to copy and paste the GDPR to U.S. law -- the institutions and legal systems are just too different.