WELCOME to Connected Rights, your cherry on the cake of digital rights news and analysis. FIRST THINGS FIRST! As many of you will know, last year I published a book called Control Shift: How Technology Affects You and Your Rights. Well, I've now decided to give it away for free, so please go ahead and download … Continue reading Free stuff alert! I’m giving away my book on digital rights
On copyright, some media turkeys are lobbying for Christmas
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your rustling in the leaves of digital rights news and analysis. LEADING EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS ARE TRYING TO LOBBY for the introduction of ancillary copyright across the EU, in the form of Article 11 of the new Copyright Directive. Google and Facebook are apparently "fleecing…the media of their rightful revenue". Look, this is … Continue reading On copyright, some media turkeys are lobbying for Christmas
Google, China and InfoWars: Online censorship hits the headlines
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your hadron in the collider of digital rights news and analysis. GOOGLE PULLED OUT OF CHINA EIGHT YEARS AGO over the country's censorship requirements and state-sponsored hacking. But now, according to multiple reports, the company is planning a return, with censor-friendly search and news aggregation apps being developed under a project codenamed … Continue reading Google, China and InfoWars: Online censorship hits the headlines
“Democracy needs resistance” – the ePrivacy reform is in trouble
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your ham in the slow cooker of digital rights news and analysis. A NEW EU LAW COVERING THE PRIVACY OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS appears to have stalled in the legislative process. The Council of the EU, currently led by the Austrians under a rotating presidency, is supposed to figure out a common position … Continue reading “Democracy needs resistance” – the ePrivacy reform is in trouble
When spies get to decide surveillance is OK
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your bun in the oven of digital rights news and analysis. A DECADE'S WORTH OF BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARIES WRONGLY authorised the intelligence agencies to collect as much telecommunications as they liked, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has found after a lot of bugging (pardon the pun) by Privacy International. Essentially, the foreign secretaries … Continue reading When spies get to decide surveillance is OK
Tech’s perversion of the democratic process
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your gambol through the wheat fields of digital rights news and analysis. FACEBOOK WILL INCUR THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE FINE in the UK over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced today. That fine is only £500,000, because the incident happened in the pre-GDPR days, but it's still not a … Continue reading Tech’s perversion of the democratic process
Google and Facebook’s home state is the new privacy battleground
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your tip of the iceberg of digital rights news and analysis. CALIFORNIA HAS PASSED A LAW THAT CAN be best described as "GDPR-lite" – like the EU law, AB 375 forces companies to say what data they hold, why they hold it and where it goes, lets consumers object to their data … Continue reading Google and Facebook’s home state is the new privacy battleground
Dark patterns and the “meaning” of privacy
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your flick of the wrist of digital rights news and analysis. BIG TECH COMPANIES ARE MEETING TODAY TO DISCUSS PRIVACY in the wake of the GDPR and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to Axios. The publication quotes Dean Garfield, head of the Information Technology Industry Council, as saying "they've always viewed privacy … Continue reading Dark patterns and the “meaning” of privacy
Good Apple
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your journey through the looking-glass of digital rights news and analysis. APPLE HAS ANNOUNCED THAT THE NEXT VERSION OF SAFARI will tell users when third parties are trying to track them through things like "like" and "share" buttons, and give them a simple way to block the tracking. And which tracker did … Continue reading Good Apple
GDPR special: How was the end of the world for you?
WELCOME to Connected Rights, your ruby slippers on the yellow-brick road of digital rights news and analysis. THE INTRODUCTION OF THE GDPR HAS BEEN nothing if not dramatic, so what the heck, let's focus on that today. (Don't worry, there's a bit of non-GDPR-related stuff towards the end.) The complaints: One of the GDPR's fun bits … Continue reading GDPR special: How was the end of the world for you?
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