data controller / data protection agencies / facebook / GDPR / General Data Protection Regulation / Jurisdiction / liability / online platforms / Personal data / Social media

CJEU Advocate General opines on the definition of a data controller, applicable national law, and jurisdiction under data protection law

‘Cruise control for the social media age, or stuck in second gear?’ The issue of defining data controllership is “particularly thorny” says AG, and looking to become thornier as complete control is becoming less and less common in practice Last month, Advocate General (AG) Bot of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) delivered … Continue reading

content regulation / Copyright / defamation / filtering / hate speech / Human rights / Internet intermediaries / Law enforcement / liability / notice-and-action / notice-and-take down / terrorism

The EU approach to content regulation online: tackling (il)legal content online with upload and re-upload filters!

Intermediary liability has been up until now a never-ending story. For the past two years, we have been regularly fed with communications, codes of conduct, legislative proposals, as well as soft but loud encouragements, from national governments targeting online platforms and asking them to do much more to tackle illegal content such as child sexual … Continue reading

Data protection / Internet intermediaries / liability / Privacy

Data Protection & Intermediary liability: how do the French do it?

While the scope of intermediary liability exemptions is being discussed in several places around Europe (and beyond), it is interesting to go back to the Overblog legal saga, which a few years ago had been described by some as pre-announcing other popular sagas, such as the infamous Google Spain case (discussed in a previous post … Continue reading

content regulation / Copyright / Intellectual Property / Internet intermediaries / liability

AG CAMPOS SÁNCHEZ-BORDONA in Stichting Brein: what is the link between GS Media and Article 15 ECD?

      The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU)’s Advocate General (AG) Campos Sanchez-Bordona issued his opinion yesterday in the case C‑527/15 Stichting Brein v Jack Frederik Wullems, acting under the name of Filmspeler, which is again a case involving the infamous right to communicate copyright works to the public. Very briefly, the … Continue reading

content regulation / Copyright / immunities / Internet intermediaries / liability / Linking / notice-and-take down

The CJEU on its head: Is GS Media consistent with Google v Vuitton?

The decision of the CJEU (Court of Justice of the EU) in the GS Media case is a shock. For those who are still enjoying your summer holidays, the CJEU issued today a decision that will not be forgotten easily. The first reason is that the CJEU does not follow its Advocate General (AG), who … Continue reading

defamation / Internet intermediaries / liability / notice-and-take down / Privacy

MTE v Hungary: is the ECtHR rewriting Delfi v Estonia?

A few months after the now infamous decision Delfi v Estonia of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) [for background, see my earlier post here], the Fourth Section of the Court issued on 2 February 2016 a judgement (MTE v Hungary) dealing with similar issues. Starting with the end of … Continue reading

defamation / Internet intermediaries / liability

On Delfi v Estonia… Is it time to adopt a good-Samaritan style exemption?

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently upheld the decision of the First section in the case Delfi v Estonia, which in 2013 found that holding a news portal liable for the third-party comments posted on its Internet news portal did not amount to a violation of Article 10 of … Continue reading