Articles

• Geist, Michael, Huge Victory for Internet Privacy in Canada, How a Supreme Court ruling blows Canadian government’s plans for privacy reform, CRI 2014, 97-100
  In June 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its long-awaited R v Spencer decision examining the legality of voluntary warrantless disclosure of basic subscriber information to law enforcement. This ruling issued a strong endorsement of Internet privacy, emphasizing the privacy importance of subscriber information, the right to anonymity, and the need for police to obtain a warrant for subscriber information except in exigent circumstances or under a reasonable law. After briefly pointing out the legislative background to this decision (I.), the article presents the key findings by the Supreme Court (II.) and discusses their implications (III.). Finally, the article draws a picture of lawful access legislation in Canada suggesting two new and constructive legislative approaches (IV.).

• Van Eecke, Patrick / Cornette, Anthony, What the CJEU has actually decided in Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González, No. C-131/12, An analysis of how this decision fits in with previous CJEU case law and how much is left for national courts to elaborate, CRI 2014, 101-107
  On 13 May 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered its decision in the case Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González (CRi 2014, pp. 77). Google Spain SL is a milestone judgment on the balance between privacy and the right of the public to access information. The judgment raises a number of important questions, including the territorial scope of the privacy legislation, the way of assessing which information must be considered to be “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to those purposes and in the light of the time that has elapsed", and the “opt-out" processing by search engines (including of special categories of data) which now seems to have been legitimised by the CJEU.After a brief introduction (I.), the article first lays out the material that was in front of the CJEU for evaluation (II.). In a second step the actual decisions on the 9 merits are assessed and interpreted against previous CJEU case law (III.), before the remaining open questions are summarised in a conclusion (IV.).

• Werkmeister, Christoph / Post, Dana / Becker, Philipp, Net Neutrality, The FCC’s new approach for net neutrality in the US vs. EU and Member State Regulation, CRI 2014, 108-113
  The Internet is a global system of interconnected networks that has developed into one of the most complex structures of our time. The number of connected servers and the volume of transmitted data has constantly increased. However, similar to road networks, the Internet’s infrastructure is constantly challenged to keep up with the increasing amount of traffic. “Traffic jams" on the Internet could lead to a slowdown of data flows and thus have a significant economic impact. A solution to avoid such congestion might be found in the construction of fast lanes for privileged data packages. In opposition to such an approach is the concept of net neutrality, which promotes the idea of equality of data. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently in the process of adopting a new framework to govern net neutrality. At the same time, European Union (EU) legislation is in the making. The following article will explain the different approaches to tackling increasing network traffic and discuss the latest developments in the US and the EU.

• Nagel, Daniel, Network Blocking in the EU: A Slippery Slope to (Third Party) Censorship?, How the CJEU missed to give a crucial guidance in his judgment on UPC Telekabel Wien GmbH v. Constantin Film Verleih GmbH, C-314/12, decision of 27 March 2014, CRi 2014, 48, CRI 2014, 113-116
  When the Commercial Court in Vienna obliged UPC Telekabel to block access by customers to a website which allowed for downloads or streaming of films including some by Constantin Film and Wega, many thought this constituted merely an overreaction to make a point in a case where the copyright violation was blatant and which was mainly directed at the “bad guys" on the net who were netting profits by sharing content others produced.However, due to the recent judgment of the CJEU (C-314/12), the issue was transposed to another level which might even trigger the fear that the floodgates will open wide for a coming censorship.

• CRI 2014, 116-122
• CRI 2014, 122-128

About the Authors

• About the Authors, CRI 2014, 128