Companies will be required to disclose security breaches within 24 hours of their occurrence under European Union proposals being made this week to strengthen data protection rules.
New rules are needed to protect consumers and reduce bureaucracy, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a speech at a conference today in Munich.
"Companies that suffer a data leak must inform the data protection authorities and the individuals concerned, and they must do so without undue delay," Bloomberg quoted Reding as saying at the DLD conference. "European data protection rules will become a trademark people recognize and trust … Read more
Regulators for the European Union originally said they'd make a decision on the merger by January 10. But in December, the EU Commission delayed the deadline stating that it wanted to review additional documents that Google had submitted to support its case.
LAS VEGAS--I wish I had one of these while covering this show.
Verizon announced today at CES 2012 not one, but two, new 4G mobile hot spots: the Jetpack EuFi890 and the Jetpack MiFi 4620L. The carrier said both offer 4G cellular speed up to 12Mbps down and 5Mbps up, and are global-ready, which allows customers to use wireless data services in more than 205 countries (more than 125 with 3G speeds).
Other than that, the common features of the two also include:
Supports up to 10 Wi-Fi-enabled devices Supports virtually all Wi-Fi clients regardless of their platform.Backward-compatible with … Read more
It would be counter-productive to make voice, text, and data roaming too cheap, Telefonica has argued in response to strict new proposals by a member of the European Parliament.
Excessively low retail caps would make it too unprofitable for new investors to enter the European mobile market, and stymie the Commission's goal of increasing competition, Telefonica regulatory chief Robert Mourik told a European Parliament debate on Tuesday.
In June, HP launched a lawsuit against Oracle, alleging that the database giant's decision to stop making software for Itanium was simply an attempt to drive business away from HP and toward Oracle. Oracle had announced in March that it would no longer develop software for the chip. But HP has been heavily invested in using Itanium … Read more
European regulators have begun scrutinizing whether Samsung was fair in matters concerning the overlap of standards and patents, the latest development in a global legal battle with Apple over smartphone technology.
Lawsuit watcher Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents spotted the move in an Apple court filing. The Apple filing said, "Samsung's litigation campaign and other conduct related to its declared-essential patents is so egregious that the European Commission recently has opened an investigation to determine whether Samsung's behavior violates EU competition laws."
And the EC confirmed the move in a statement to CNET: "The Commission … Read more
The Rev. Justin Yu is out for the rest of the week, but in his place we have the always informative financial guru Jill Schlesinger. Today we talk about the new Amazon Kindle Fire, and how it changes everything in the tablet market (especially for Google). But we also quiz Aunt Jill about the ongoing crisis in Europe, and she tells us about the sugary grab bag at the News & Documentary Emmys.
Regulators in the European Union are evaluating whether Google is a dominant force in search and, if so, whether the company is abusing its position.
According to Reuters, EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia spoke today at a conference in Florence about the regulatory body's evaluation of Google. Almunia reportedly said that the EU is "trying to determine whether the company holds a dominant position in Internet search." What's more, Almunia said, according to Reuters, the commission is also trying to decide whether Google abuses its power in the marketplace.
Europe's biodiesel industry could be wiped out by EU plans to tackle the unwanted side effects of biofuel production, after studies showed few climate benefits, four papers obtained by Reuters show.
Europe's world-leading $13 billion biodiesel industry, which has boomed in the wake of a decision by Brussels policymakers in 2003 to promote it, is now on the verge of being legislated out of existence after the studies revealed biodiesel's indirect impact cancels out most of its benefits.
"This study would pave the way for the demise of the European biodiesel sector," Philippe Tillous-Borde, chief of French oilseed giant Sofiproteol, which owns Europe's largest biodiesel producer, told Reuters.
The EU has been arguing for two years over the extent of indirect damage to the environment caused by it setting a target of increasing biofuel use to 10 percent of all road fuels by 2020, from less than three percent today.
Its own analysis shows the target may lead to an indirect one-off release of around 1,000 megatonnes of carbon dioxide--more than twice the annual emissions of Germany.
The emerging picture that the EU has got its policy wrong has proved unpalatable, and the European Commission has refused a Reuters freedom of information request for the latest studies, arguing the public interest of disclosure is insufficient.
However, those documents have now been leaked.… Read more
For its part, Google this morning acknowledged that it had received formal notification from the FTC about its probe and plans to work with the agency in coming months. But it stands by its principles and company mission and suggested the investigation is misguided.
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