News

In a nutshell: The European Parliamentary committees have finalised their work on the GI protection of crafts/industrial products proposal and the EUID regulation, and expressed criticism over the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. The European Commission published the European Digital Identity Wallet Architecture and Reference Framework, and a proposal for Gigabit Infrastructure Act, while seeking public views for the upcoming GDPR enforcement review and the future of the connectivity sector. The EU is also revising its insolvency law and has included domain registries in its scope. The Swedish presidency proposed a list of critical products under the CRA. The EDPS is piloting the use of Free and Open Source Software. ENISA published its multiannual single-programming report for 2023-2025. The Leipzig Regional Court ruled in favour of Sony against Quad9.

From 16-17 February, CENTR’s Legal and Regulatory Working Group, that brings together ccTLD legal experts from all over Europe and beyond, met in Brussels for a day and a half of discussions, focusing in particular on cybersecurity and the upcoming implementation of the NIS 2 Directive. The group welcomed guest speakers from the European Commission and ENISA, and focused on the impact of NIS 2 on digital infrastructure actors, such as TLD registries, and the role of the EU institutions/agencies within the implementation phase.

In this blogpost CENTR's Policy Director talks about the ongoing GI reform, explaining the differences between GIs, trademarks and domain names. She focuses on how the proposed GI reform will impact domain names and argues that there is a clear lack of evidence in the arguments supporting the proposed changes, as well as questioning EUIPO's competence in this area. Finally, the potential impact of including gTLDs in the scope of this reform is touched on at the end of the article.

CENTR, the association of European country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries, such as .at for Austria or .es for Spain, is looking for a consultant to take on the role of CENTR European TLD ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Centre) Coordinator.

In a nutshell: EU ambassadors and LIBE endorsed a political agreement on e-Evidence. Europol and Eurojust published a situation report on access to electronic evidence by law enforcement and judicial authorities in 2022. IMCO adopted its opinion on the proposal for a regulation on GI protection for craft and industrial products, while JURI adopted its opinion on the proposal for a regulation on GI protection for agricultural products. MEPs in AGRI expressed concerns over EUIPO’s increased competence within the GI reform. The EDPB adopted reports on cookie banners and the use of cloud services by the public sector. A 2022 consumer protection “sweep” identified an increase of dark patterns within web shops.

On Thursday 26 January 2023, members of the CENTR Administrative and Marketing Working Groups and of the LACTLD Commercial Working Group joined together online for the first time to discuss registrar accreditation.

In a nutshell: Sweden is holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of the year. The geographical indications reform is moving through the clogs of the EU legislative machine, with the Council being slightly more ahead with the discussions on the crafts and industrial products. The NIS 2 Directive entered into force, paving the way towards its upcoming implementation phase in the Member States. Member States are divided over the provisional agreement on the e-Evidence package, while the European Parliament endorsed the ratification of the Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention. The European Commission is expected to reform the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation.

The CENTRstats Global TLD Report Edition 3/2022 has been published. It covers the global status and registration trends in all top-level domains (legacy gTLDs, new gTLDs and ccTLDs), with a specific focus on the European ccTLD market.

The EU is reforming its legal framework concerning geographical indications (GI) protection and has put forward provisions expanding GI protection to domain names in two recent legislative proposals concerning agricultural products and craft/industrial products. In order to support greater GI protection on the internet, both proposals mandate the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) to establish a “domain name information and alert system”. 

In a nutshell: November was a fruitful month for negotiations in the EU bubble, with both the Council of the EU and the European Parliament adopting the NIS 2 Directive, and the European Parliament adopting the CER Directive. Co-legislators also reached a political agreement on the e-Evidence proposal. The Council adopted its General Approach on the EUID proposal, whilst the IMCO Committee issued its Opinion on the file. As for geographical indications, the AGRI Committee issued its Draft Report on the proposal for agricultural products and received numerous amendments, which was also the case for IMCO and JURI regarding amendments on the craft and industrial products proposal. The EDPS released its Opinion on the Cyber Resilience Act.