Germany’s Federal Court of Justice, the country’s highest civil court, has overruled a court decision suspending an antitrust authority order which focused on Facebook’s collection and use of data. The court found that there were “neither serious doubts about Facebook’s dominant position on the German market for social networks, nor that Facebook is abusing the…
DetailsIn 2016, following a merger inquiry, the European Commission blocked a proposed merger between o2 and Three UK, largely due to the impact the merger would have in the UK mobile market, by reducing the number of Mobile Network Operators in the UK from four to three, leading to increased prices and worse quality of…
DetailsNHS Coronavirus App Isle of Wight trial, as reviewed by Preiskel & Co’s Stewart White. The UK Government urged amongst some fanfare for the residents of the Isle of Wight to be “part of history” by downloading the NHS Contact Tracing App, which is the solution chosen by the Government instead of the location based…
DetailsThe UK Government has announced that the Coronavirus Future Fund will be launched in May 2020, providing government loans of between £125,000 to £5 million to innovative UK-based companies which face financing difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The loans are subject to matched funding being secured from private investors, and are expected to help…
DetailsIn a further reminder of how interconnected the modern world is, streaming companies have announced that they will limit the quality of video streams to address high demand for bandwidth. The moves are to keep the internet functioning as smoothly as possible while telecoms services are under particularly high demand, as thousands of people adopt…
DetailsMWC may have been cancelled, but there are many unofficial MWC related events still going on in Barcelona during MWC week (starting 24 Feb). Danny will be participating at the MEF events, many of which are focusing on data privacy/consumer identity related aspects as well as IoT which will be open on a one-off basis…
DetailsThe deadline of 3 March 2020 for responses to Ofcom’s Electronic Communications Code (“EECC”) Consultation is fast approaching. The consultation focuses on the implementation of the EECC. The EECC includes regulatory changes across a wide scope, including: Banning mobile providers from selling “locked” devices; Provision of a “summary of key contract terms” to customers before they…
DetailsAndrea Leadsom and Sajid Javid, in one of their last acts as government ministers,addressed a letter to Andrea Coscelli, the Chief Executive of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), commissioning a regular review of the state of competition in the UK. The letter argues that existing indicators of how competition is functioning in the…
DetailsDCMS has announced that it plans to introduce new legislation to protect users of Internet of Things (“IoT”) household devices from cyber threats through heightened security requirements. The proposed legislation includes the following security requirements: any password for consumer internet-connected devices must be unique and there must not be an option to reset to a…
DetailsThe European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has ruled that the popular accommodation website and app, Airbnb, is a provider of information society services (Airbnb Ireland, Case C-390/18) as defined in the E-Commerce Directive (Directive 2000/31/EC). The ruling follows a request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, and provides useful…
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