It was high time that the European Commission tried to arrest the over-exploitation of European consumers by a handful of banks and credit card providers. This week Joaquín Almunia, Commission’s Vice President responsible for competition policy, and Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner in charge of internal market and services presented one draft regulation and one directive amendment, […]Commission caps charges on card and Internet payments and enforces competition
July 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It was high time that the European Commission tried to arrest the over-exploitation of European consumers by a handful of banks and credit card providers. This week Joaquín Almunia, Commission’s Vice President responsible for competition policy, and Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner in charge of internal market and services presented one draft regulation and one directive amendment, […]Is Data Privacy really safe seen through Commissioner’s PRISM?
June 19, 2013 by 1 Comment
It was last Friday that the European Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, had a ministerial meeting in Dublin with Mr Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General. The topic of the meeting would have normally been the ongoing discussion on the transatlantic data privacy agreement. That would have been effectively the 15th round of negotiations to bridge […]Amazon, a pair of shoes and my Data Privacy walks away
April 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Try to remember the last time you shopped from Amazon. Most likely you are another happy consumer that has enjoyed the benefits of e-shopping in terms of service, price and delivery time. It is also highly possible that you already master the plethora of reasons not to get into your car and experience all that […]To Bing or Not to Bing? That is the question
March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It was earlier today that the Vice-President of the European Commission, Joaquin Almunia, received an open letter signed by a dozen complainants that ask for the strictest possible punishment in the long pending Google Antitrust case. This letter signed by 11 internet companies came as the next strategic move of the fierce Anti-Google lobby that […]Commission imposes a fine of €561 million on Microsoft
March 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Late in the afternoon of today 6 February, the Commission issued an announcement, signed by Joaquín Almunia, Vice President responsible for Competition Policy, saying that the Commission imposes on Microsoft a fine of €561 million. According to this Press release, the decision came as result of Microsoft’s failure to comply with the legally binding commitments […]Facebook and Google to treat Europe as the 51st State of the USA
February 7, 2013 by 2 Comments
On the 4th of February 2013 seventeen prominent US consumer and civil liberties organizations addressed a strong petition letter to highly ranked executives of the American government in Washington and to one American in Brussels, Mr. William Kennard, American Ambassador of the US Mission to the EU. Every European needs to know what all those […]It ain’t over until Google says it’s over
February 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The deadline EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia set to Google to answer the Commission’s investigation expired yesterday and, since no answer had been filled, people in the DG Competition decided to throw a party. They thought that these would be the easiest €4 billion the European Commission had ever made. Mr. Almunia even rushed to brag […]The big five EU telecom operators in dire straights
January 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia and Telefónica constitute the exclusive club of major telecom operators in the European Union. The very oligopolistic character of the market has prompted the European Commission some years ago to forcefully introduce ground breaking changes in the EU telecom market. Towards the end of 2009 the Commission […]EC v Samsung: A whole year to compile a case
December 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
It took almost one year to the European Commission to decide that Samsung is potentially abusing its dominant position, in the mobile telephony standard patents. It was January 2012 when the EC issued a statement saying that, “The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention […]Huawei answers allegations about its selling prices
December 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Two major Chinese providers of mobile phone equipment, Huawei Technologies Co. and the smaller ZTE Corporation, according to a Wall Street Journal report are under scrutiny by the European Commission, for allegedly offering their products at dumping prices. This report is still unconfirmed by the EU authorities. Its wording though is very carefully chosen by […]Why Microsoft is a regular to Almunia’s
December 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In the years of globalisation, free movements of capital, goods and to a lesser degree of labour, have raised exponentially citizen’s wellbeing in our western economic volume and not only. This achievement has to be totally credited, to the opening of national markets to international competition. At the same time though globalisation has created new opportunities […]Cloud computing under scrutiny in the EU?
December 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Cloud computing seems to function in the same way for the ICT world, as the ocean-going shipping for the real economy, it is highly efficient, can be lucrative and dangerous, demands investments in skills, R&D and infrastructure, depends to a rather limited extend on the cooperation between the public and the private sector and suffer […]eGovernmnet for more efficiency, equality and democracy
November 20, 2012 by 1 Comment
At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö, (Sweden) the 27 EU ministers, responsible for administrative affairs, outlined a joint vision and policy priorities on how to developing smarter online public services for citizens and businesses by 2015. The EU Commission hailed this agreement and commented that eGovernment is a key step towards boosting Europe’s […]Google case: A turning point in competition rules enforcement
October 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Enforcing fair competition in the fast-moving digital markets, like in the Google case, is a fight against time. If the antitrust procedures take the long way of legal battles before the European courts, the possible competition law breaches may purport billions to the culpable party. That is why, Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the European Commission […]
