Indivigital: New GDPR Tool Targets Google, Facebook With ‘Automated’ Right To Be Forgotten Requests. “…some of the newest GDPR tools have inverted the target market and are helping users partly automate the process of sending erasure requests, colloquially referred to as ‘the right to be forgotten,’ to organizations that store their data. One such tool… allows users to search a database of 5,000 organizations for appropriate contact details of personnel or departments responsible for erasure requests. Upon selecting an organization to contact, the tool also opens a user’s email client and populates a new message with a template email.”
Europe
The Register: UN’s freedom of expression top dog slams European copyright plans
The Register: UN’s freedom of expression top dog slams European copyright plans . “The campaign against a key aspect of new European copyright legislation has picked up a significant backer: the United Nations’ freedom of expression expert. David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur, has sent a lengthy letter to the European Commission outlining his concerns about Article 13 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, which would require large internet platforms to introduce automated upload filters that remove copyrighted content.”
The Register: Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android
The Register: Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android. “Four years ago there were four mobile platforms, but since Microsoft and BlackBerry withdrew, it’s a duopoly of Apple and Google. The creation of a new third platform – a Google-free Android – now looks feasible, given the Great Unbundling the European Commission is likely to order. But someone has to build the damn thing – and it’s going to be a mammoth task.”
PublicNow: NUI Galway ENERGISE Project Launches Online Database Of Energy Initiatives
PublicNow: NUI Galway ENERGISE Project Launches Online Database Of Energy Initiatives (PRESS RELEASE). “NUI Galway, lead coordinators of the €3.7 million pan-European Horizon 2020 project, ENERGISE (European Network for Research, Good Practice and Innovation for Sustainable Energy), along with their partner collaborators, have launched an online database of best practice examples of energy initiatives from 30 European countries including Ireland. The database was launched this week in Brussels as part of European Sustainable Energy Week.”
BBC News: Copyright law could put end to net memes
BBC News: Copyright law could put end to net memes. “The Copyright Directive is an attempt to reshape copyright for the internet, in particular rebalancing the relationship between copyright holders and online platforms. Article 13 states that platform providers should ‘take measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rights-holders for the use of their works’. Critics say this will, in effect, require all internet platforms to filter all content put online by users, which many believe would be an excessive restriction on free speech.”
Report: EU about to fine Google billions in Android antitrust case (Search Engine Land)
Search Engine Land: Report: EU about to fine Google billions in Android antitrust case. “According to a report in Financial Times (paywall), the European Commission is set to impose a second major antitrust fine on Google for alleged abuse of power in Android licensing deals with phone makers. The report says EU Competition Chief Margrethe Vestager is ‘poised to announce the negative finding within weeks . . . marking the most significant regulatory intervention made against Google’s business model.'”
University of Vermont: New Map Shows Many Old-growth Forests Remain In Europe
University of Vermont: New Map Shows Many Old-growth Forests Remain In Europe. “Though you might read about deep, dark woods in fairy tales, the prevailing story today is that very little European old-growth forest remains. But now a new study—and map—shows that a surprising number of these primary forests still stand.”
