News

In a nutshell: The European Commission published a New Consumer Agenda, an Intellectual Property Action Plan and a proposal for a Data Governance Act regulation. The Representative Action Directive is awaiting its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. The European Data Protection Board issued its post-Schrems II recommendations for data transfers. The European Data Protection Supervisor issued an opinion on the temporary e-Privacy derogation proposal. The European Parliament’s LIBE Committee proposed amendments to the temporary e-Privacy derogation proposal.

What do computer scientists, behaviour economists and cognitive psychologists have in common? They all appreciate the power of the default effect, i.e. whatever people get without making an active choice is what is likely to be the most popular. In the world of network protocol development, the story of deployment of encrypted DNS protocols is arguably centred around what will become the default.

By Monika Ermert, eLance Journalist - At the RIPE81 meeting which took place at the end of October, the new leadership duo, RIPE Chair Mirjam Kühne and Executive Director Hans Peter Holen, presented preliminary ideas of changes to come.

The CENTRstats Global TLD Report Q3/2020 has been published and shows that Q3 2020 has seen a continuation of high rates of new domain creations as well as a slight decrease in deletes. Furthermore, for several countries, the national ccTLD also gained market share based on ‘popular website’ ranks from Alexa. This report covers the status and trends in top-level domains with a focus on European ccTLDs (country code top-level domains). 

In a nutshell: The European Commission published its 2021 work programme and announced its plans for the Digital Markets Act. The European Parliament adopted all three of its own-initiative reports on the Digital Services Act. Europol published the Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment for 2020. The Council of the EU agreed on the negotiation mandate on the temporary e-Privacy derogation. The European Data Protection Supervisor issued advice for the EU institutions on complying with Schrems II and issued a decision on Europol’s “big data challenge”. The European Court of Justice held that mass retention of electronic communication metadata is against fundamental rights.

This is the first article in our RIPE81 series of blogposts by eJournalist, Monika Ermert.

CENTR has published its Report on ICANN69, which took place virtually between 13-15 and 19–22 October 2020. This report focuses on the Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO) and the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) sessions.

On 7 October 2020 CENTR held it’s 64th General Assembly, reducing the usual full day meeting in Brussels to a virtual morning session.

In a nutshell: Three European Parliament committees adopted their own-initiative reports on the Digital Services Act. The European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) published its Draft Report on the European strategy for data. The European Commission proposed a temporary e-Privacy Directive derogation to combat child sexual abuse, and published its first report on the status of the rule of law across the EU. The European Data Protection Board published guidelines on the concepts of “data controller” and “data processor”. The Advocate General (AG) of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) Szpunar issued a non-binding opinion in a case concerning hyperlinking.

CENTR has released an animated video on ccTLDs and their technical role in relation to online content.