Privacy Online Law And The Effective Regulation Of Online Services

The book draws a novel approach to data privacy (or data protection) regulations by presenting a solution to the problem of lack of individual control over personal data. It combines economic, technical, and legal perspectives to show how to reinforce individual autonomy and, at the same time, to increase the competitiveness of data economy.

Since the second edition (2010) of this invaluable book – primary texts with expert article-by-article commentary on European data protection, e-commerce and information technology (IT) regulation, including analysis of case law – there has been a marked shift in regulatory focus. It can be said that, without knowing it, EU citizens have migrated from an information society to a digital single market to a data-driven economy. This thoroughly revised and updated third edition pinpoints, in a crystal-clear format, the meaning and application of currently relevant provisions enacted at the European and Member State levels, allowing practitioners and other interested parties to grasp the exact status of such laws, whether in force, under construction, controversial or proposed. Material has been rearranged and brought into line with the vibrant and constantly shifting elements in this field, with detailed attention to developments (most new to this edition) in such issues as the following: · cybersecurity; · privacy rights; · supply of digital content; · consumer rights in electronic commerce; · Geo-blocking; · open Internet; · contractual rules for online sale of (tangible) goods; · competition law in the IT sectors; · consumer online dispute resolution; · electronic signatures; and · reuse of public sector information. There is a completely new section on electronic identification, trust and security regulation, defining the trend towards an effective e-commerce framework protecting consumers and businesses accessing content or buying goods and services online. The contributors offer a very useful and practical review and analysis of the instruments, taking into account the fluidity and the transiency of the regulation of these very dynamic phenomena. This book will be quickly taken up by the myriad professionals – lawyers, officials and academics – engaged with data protection, e-commerce and IT on a daily basis.

The aim of the book is to create a bridge between two ‘lands’ that are usually kept separate: technical tools and legal rules should be bound together for moulding a special ‘toolbox’ to solve present and future issues. The volume is intended to contribute to this ‘toolbox’ in the area of software services, while addressing how to make legal studies work closely with engineers’ and computer scientists’ fields of expertise, who are increasingly involved in tangled choices on daily programming and software development. In this respect, law has not lost its importance and its own categories in the digital world, but as well as any social science needs to experience a new realistic approach amid technological development and individuals’ fundamental rights and freedoms.

Every day, societal demand grows for some form of control or supervision over something that appears inherently beyond governance: the Internet. The gulf between community aspiration and the perceived limits on government capacity forces each entity, industry, and regulator to conduct a thorough and painstaking search for an appropriate solution. The resolution to this dilemma requires the innovation of regulatory design for the Internet. Without flexibility and responsiveness, traditional law and regulation cannot adequately address the transnational, intangible, and ever changing Internet space. Attempts at Internet regulation generally have moved away from direct legal control and toward more flexible variations of what can be termed ?self-regulation.? This ground-breaking book by two leading authorities in this new field of law concerns the mushrooming growth of institutions and systems of self-regulation on the Internet. Internet self-regulation involves many issues, including e-commerce, technical protocols, and domain names management, but most public concern and debate has been over illegal and harmful content on the Internet. Self-Regulation and the Internet examines how self-regulatory entities for content relate to other quasi-legal and state institutions, what powers are accorded to or seized by self-regulatory institutions, and how the use of self-regulation can contribute to the more effective and more efficient realization of both economic and societal goals. This book offers: a general and theoretical examination of self-regulation, focusing on codes of conduct; approaches to the methodology and process for adopting such codes; descriptions and evaluations of technical devices as self-regulatory tools; and an analysis of Internet self-regulation in a converged and digital environment. The analysis encompasses a wide spectrum, from technical matters of filters and transmission streams to such important legal issues as the possible meanings of such terms as ?illegal and harmful.? Crucial topics include ISP service agreements, anti-spam measures, regulation of hate speech, digital television, defining a common language for metainformation, and a great deal more. The geographic scope is global, with numerous detailed references to developments in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. The breadth and depth of this analysis, and the vast quantity of information that underpins it, give this book an authoritative preeminence not to be found elsewhere. In the coming years, as the material it examines continues to grow and change in ever more dramatic ways, it will be turned to again and again for its invaluable insights and recommendations.

This book is about enforcing privacy and data protection. It demonstrates different approaches – regulatory, legal and technological – to enforcing privacy. If regulators do not enforce laws or regulations or codes or do not have the resources, political support or wherewithal to enforce them, they effectively eviscerate and make meaningless such laws or regulations or codes, no matter how laudable or well-intentioned. In some cases, however, the mere existence of such laws or regulations, combined with a credible threat to invoke them, is sufficient for regulatory purposes. But the threat has to be credible. As some of the authors in this book make clear – it is a theme that runs throughout this book – “carrots” and “soft law” need to be backed up by “sticks” and “hard law”. The authors of this book view privacy enforcement as an activity that goes beyond regulatory enforcement, however. In some sense, enforcing privacy is a task that befalls to all of us. Privacy advocates and members of the public can play an important role in combatting the continuing intrusions upon privacy by governments, intelligence agencies and big companies. Contributors to this book - including regulators, privacy advocates, academics, SMEs, a Member of the European Parliament, lawyers and a technology researcher – share their views in the one and only book on Enforcing Privacy.

What rights to privacy do we have on the internet, and how can we make them real?

Information society projects promise wealth and better services to those countries which digitise and encourage the consumer and citizen to participate. As paper recedes into the background and digital data becomes the primary resource in the information society, what does this mean for privacy? Can there be privacy when every communication made through ever-developing ubiquitous devices is recorded? Data protection legislation developed as a reply to large scale centralised databases which contained incorrect data and where data controllers denied access and refused to remedy information flaws. Some decades later the technical world is very different one, and whilst data protection remains important, the cries for more privacy-oriented regulation in commerce and eGov continue to rise. What factors should underpin the creation of new means of regulation? The papers in this collection have been drawn together to develop the positive and negative effects upon the information society which privacy regulation implies.