by Prof. Winfried Bausback Increasingly, the forthcoming European Parliament elections in May are being described as a battle to decide Europe’s destiny. This is partly because Europe is often no longer regarded as a great achievement; instead, there are forces…
There Shall be Order! A Proposal for More Structured Normativity on the Internet
by Matthias C. Kettemann Can you recall a time before the Internet? When you read newspapers, called your friends on the landline and watched what the TV offered. Like everyone else? Things have changed considerably in this age of instant…
In the face – of Facebook
Landmark decision of German Anti-trust Authority In a landmark decision the Bundeskartellamt (German Antitrust Authority) is prohibiting Facebook from combining user data from different sources – of its subsidiaries like Whatsapp and of other third parties.1 The decision of the…
The “one for all lawsuit”
by Dr Katarina Barley – former Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection – Germany A faster, better and cheaper way of enforcing consumer rights Until recently, many consumers who had purchased a manipulated diesel car probably thought: “How is…
Joint Controllership within a group of entities*
by Jutta-Sonja Oberlin and Lukas Lezzi 1 Introduction It is crucial for compliance of intra-group[1] data processing activities under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)[2] to answer the question as to whether such cooperation in data processing constitutes order processing…
Microsoft is driving its customers into non-compliance
Microsoft is secretly transferring data of user’s behaviour to the US for its own purpose. With this misuse of data Microsoft is driving its customers into non-compliance since the data transfer to Microsoft is lacking a legal basis. In addition,…
Threat of fines also applies to public-sector undertakings
by Lana Dachlauer-Baron The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the German Federal Data Protection Act (FDPA) have come into force since 25 May 2018. In the meantime, all German federal states have also adapted their data protection acts (LDSG)…
Facebook-hack: stress test for Irish DPA
Facebook has reported a hack of 3 million European users personal data to the Irish DPA.[1] The Irish DPA is under pressure to answer to the key question of GDPR: do national DPAs have the power to force multinationals like…