Search Results for: privacy

Facebook wins EU approval for WhatsApp acquisition; just a sign of the times

After a few months of sleepless nights, Facebook founder and young billionaire Mark Zuckerberg can finally relax a bit. The world’s largest social network will likely receive approval by the European Union for its $19 billion purchase of mobile messaging startup WhatsApp, reports said. Citing two people “familiar with the matter” Reuters revealed on Thursday […]

EU makes key TTIP document public as protests get louder

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, known as TTIP, has always been largely criticized, and this is not news. However, the demonstrations that took place across Europe on Saturday, with large numbers of events in 22 countries across Europe, might tell that the time of huge protests against the agreement is here. Tens of thousands […]

How ‘small’ is Europe in Big Data?

One of the major current debates in ICT is the one of open big data. Last December, Neelie Kroes, the Vice-President of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda, made a speech in the European Data Protection Congress in Brussels for the importance of data in the modern world and the numerous opportunities that arise […]

Google’s hot summer never ends: EC to launch ANOTHER antitrust inquiry against the American giant

We must admit it: this is not exactly a quiet summer for Google. Not in the Old Continent at least. After the “Right To Be Forgotten” case has disturbed Google’s top management’s sleep recently, a new dark cloud may come soon. According to Reuters, the Mountain View, California-based company may soon face a new probe […]

The Next Web 2014, the biggest European conference on Internet so far and the Absence of Brussels from Amsterdam

The time for Europe’s biggest conference on Internet had come and the European Sting’s team was in Amsterdam on 24 and 25 April 2014, as official media sponsor of The Next Web 2014, “Power to the People”. As every year, the Web’s biggest names came together at Westerpark in Amsterdam to share insights and views […]

European Court of Justice to Google: It is #righttobeforgotten but not #righttoberemembered

Did you always feel bad about that weird drunk photo your girlfriend had taken a few years ago and was posted on your Hi5 profile? How disappointed did you feel when you saw that if you Google your name, that horrible photo is still at the first 10 results even though you have today lost […]

TTIP fight round 6: last chance for the negotiators to finally open up as they touch the Brussels ring

The next round of the EU-US talks on the ‘infamous’ trade and investment deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is just around the corner now, but new, fierce critics against the deal are launching back. The gigantic trade agreement, known as TTIP, has been largely criticized from the day 1 by many detractors, who claimed major risks […]

EU Parliament: No EU-US trade agreement without safe data

The European Parliament, in a strongly worded and overwhelmingly voted resolution, set a definite condition for the legislature’s approval of the currently under negotiation EU-US free trade agreement (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP). The condition is that American NSA’s mass surveillance practices be completely stopped. The relevant Press release clearly states that “Parliament’s […]

NEC @ MWC14: “Smart cities” hold the key to enhancing citizens’ lives and cutting costs

Written by Jean-Matthias Bohli, Senior Researcher at NEC Laboratories Europe By 2030, 5 billion people — around 60% of the world’s population — will live in cities, compared with 3.6 billion today, turbocharging the world’s economic growth. City leaders in developing nations must cope with urbanisation on an unprecedented scale, while those in developed ones wrestle […]

EU: Protecting victims’ rights from cartels and market abuses

It was high time that the European Union took care of citizens and companies, usually SMEs, who have suffered economic losses and other damages from infringements of the EU antitrust rules, such as cartels and abuses of dominant market positions. Until now it was very difficult for the victims to substantiate their claims for damages […]

Arlington, USA: kick-off of the fifth round of the EU-US boxing match

The time for the fifth round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP, has come, and lights were concentrated on Monday in Arlington, Virginia for the fifth round of negotiations. In the week of the European Parliament elections, which could change the Union’s political scene, there might be more news to come for […]

Movius @ MWC14: Discussing novel Communications Applications over a “CAFÉ”

In the latest Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona, the European Sting, as the media partner of the event, had an interesting exclusive interview with Jose M. Romero, Vice President of Product Strategy & Marketing in Movius Interactive Corporation. Movius is a global leader in application enablement for service providers. Its Headquarters are based in […]

EU-US trade deal: Europe to Americanize its social model?

It can’t be both. Either the EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht hadn’t recovered from the transatlantic trip hangover, while speaking in Washington on Tuesday, or he thinks we are all morons. He said: “I invite all Europeans to also discuss their concerns about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) (free trade deal)… Because […]

Intel @ European Business Summit 2014: Better decisions now, the new business dashboard 

Written By Christian Morales, Vice President and General Manager Europe, Middle East and Africa, Intel Corporation We’ve never had more information coursing through our businesses. Data presents an unprecedented opportunity to make better decisions and be more responsive to customers, suppliers and markets. It can be overwhelming, though. Many companies struggle to make sense of it, […]

Is Data Privacy really safe seen through Commissioner’s PRISM?

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 […]

“Will TTIP solve the massive EU-US unemployment? Absolutely not!” A revealing Sting Exclusive with Tim Bennett from the Transatlantic Business Council

This revealing exclusive interview with Mr Tim Bennett, Director General and CEO of the Transatlantic Business Council (TABC), was conducted by Carlo Motta at the European Sting’s pavilion during European Business Summit 2014. In the following interview Carlo Motta will be signalled as C.M and Tim Bennett as T.M. C.M.: It is a pleasure and honour to have here […]

“Austerity was not the alternative!”, President Hannes Swoboda of the European Socialists and Democrats on another Sting Exclusive

  This revealing exclusive interview with President Hannes Swoboda, President of the Progressive Alliance of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D), was conducted by Carlo Motta at the European Sting’s pavilion during European Business Summit 2014. In the following interview Carlo Motta will be signalled as C.M and President Swoboda as H.S.   C.M.: I am very pleased to […]

EU-US resume trade negotiations under the spell of NSA surveillance

Finally the second round of the EU-US trade negotiations is to be held this week from Monday to Friday 11 to 15 November in Brussels. The round was originally set for 7th-11th October but it was postponed because the Americans couldn’t travel to Europe due to the partial shutdown of the US administration. Of course […]

Snowden is the “EU nomination” for this year’s Oscars

After last June’s revelations about the PRISM scandal you can actually feel it that the air in world politics has less oxygen. The leaders of the major world powers, EU, USA and Russia faced severe respiratory issues during this period. Obama is still suffering from severe panic attacks, Putin broke the window to get some […]

The EU-US trade agreement, victim of right-wing extremists and security lunatics

The 17 days, that the extreme right (Tea Party politicians) of the US Republican Party forced the American administration to partially shut down, have already cost the GOP the mayorship of New York and the governorship of Virginia, but have also endangered their country’s trade agreement with their closest economic partner, the European Union. The […]

Advocate General ‘outlaws’ Data Retention Directive

The shallowness that the European Commission shows, while asked to protect the basic civil rights of EU citizens and companies, was ostentatiously proven in the case of the Data Retention Directive. According to the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Cruz Villalón, the Directive doesn’t provide the basic guarantees that […]

The European Sting @ Mobile World Congress 2014, Creating What’s Next for the World. Can EU Policy follow?

It was the end of February and the time for the world’s biggest annual mobile technology event had come. The rendez-vous was given at the same place as last year; at the beautiful capital of Catalunya, Barcelona, that is also the Mobile World Capital. The European Sting was media sponsor of the world’s most magnificent […]

Obama, Crimea and the TTIP pill

It was two days ago, Wednesday 26 March, that the President of the USA paid us a visit here in Brussels and caused a congestion chaos in the Belgian capital. The reason of his visit was to sell. To sell ideas about freedom, NATO membership ‘upgrades’ and a bit of shale gas. As sales are […]

Amazon, a pair of shoes and my Data Privacy walks away

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 […]

Parliament asks for the termination of EU-US bank data deal

The European Parliament finally voted in favour of the suspension of EU-US bank data deal, in response to NSA snooping. “The EU should suspend its Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) agreement with the US in response to the US National Security Agency‘s alleged tapping of EU citizens’ bank data held by the Belgian company SWIFT”, […]

Facebook and Google to treat Europe as the 51st State of the USA

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 […]

Pharmaceuticals conceal drug side effects with the EU’s Court blessing

When was the last time you heard about a famous drug that had to be withdrawn from the market after it had cost hundreds or thousands of lives to the patients who had been prescribed with? Did you think it was due to an accident or human error during production? How would you feel if you found […]

EU Council: Private web data to be protected by…abusers

Protection of citizens and businesses web data is still a pending issue in the European Union and internet companies may, probably legally, sell to marketers names, telephone numbers, mail addresses and consumer profiles including personal details. The existing privacy laws are twenty years old and far from effectively protecting our data from being sold and […]

Telecommunications and Internet: A Jungle with no principles?

Since the last World Conference on International Telecommunications in 1988 our planet has become a completely different place. It is not any more the bi-polar globe we knew until the fall of the USSR, which ended the division between communism and capitalism. Today there is only capitalism and more…capitalism. During the 1990s and the 2000s […]

Subscribe to the Sting’s Newsletter

This newsletter subscription is governed by The European Sting’s Privacy Policy, which is in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 
Go back up

The European Sting – Critical News & Insights on European Politics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business & Technology – europeansting.com