Microsoft workers protest $480m Hololens US military deal
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Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
2/23/19
USA: Microsoft workers protest against US military Hololens project awarded to Microsoft
Microsoft workers protest $480m Hololens US military deal
11/6/18
Sanitation - the Microsoft Toilet is coming: Bill Gates aims to save $233 billion by reinventing the toilet - by Jason Gale
Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he’s betting
big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a
half million lives and deliver $200 billion-plus in savings.
The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation spent $200 million over seven years funding sanitation
research, showcased some 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs
that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean
water and fertilizer.
“The technologies you’ll see here are the most significant advances in sanitation in nearly 200 years,” Gates, 63, told the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing on Tuesday.
Read more: Bill Gates aims to save $233 billion by reinventing the toilet
“The technologies you’ll see here are the most significant advances in sanitation in nearly 200 years,” Gates, 63, told the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing on Tuesday.
Read more: Bill Gates aims to save $233 billion by reinventing the toilet
3/16/18
Tariffs War: EU ready to hit big US tech firms with 3% turnover tax
Large digital companies with significant revenues in the European
Union such as Google and Facebook could face a 3% tax on their turnover
under a draft proposal by the European Commission.
The proposal, expected to be adopted next week and still subject to changes, updates an earlier draft which envisaged a tax rate of between 1 and 5%.
The tax, if backed by EU states and lawmakers, would only apply to large firms with annual worldwide revenues above €750 million ($924 million) and annual “taxable” revenues above €50 million in the EU.
The threshold for EU revenues has been raised from €10 million initially foreseen to exempt smaller companies and emerging start-ups from the tax.
Large US firms such as Uber, Airbnb and Amazon could also be hit by the new levy, which would apply across the 28 EU countries.
Read more: EU ready to hit big US tech firms with 3% turnover tax – EURACTIV.com
The proposal, expected to be adopted next week and still subject to changes, updates an earlier draft which envisaged a tax rate of between 1 and 5%.
The tax, if backed by EU states and lawmakers, would only apply to large firms with annual worldwide revenues above €750 million ($924 million) and annual “taxable” revenues above €50 million in the EU.
The threshold for EU revenues has been raised from €10 million initially foreseen to exempt smaller companies and emerging start-ups from the tax.
Large US firms such as Uber, Airbnb and Amazon could also be hit by the new levy, which would apply across the 28 EU countries.
Read more: EU ready to hit big US tech firms with 3% turnover tax – EURACTIV.com
2/25/18
USA: IS US Government Spyware Breaching Foreign Privacy Laws? Revealed: Two Secret Cogs In The FBI National Surveillance Machine - by Thomas Fox-Brewster
Known as the FBI Collections Operations Group and the FBI WiFi Group, they appear in virtually no public records. Google searches for the names return nothing. Not a single LinkedIn profile contains a reference to either.
And with the unearthing of these two units, civil liberties activists, legal experts and even former intelligence analysts are crying foul about the possibility of widespread domestic surveillance occurring across America with zero oversight.
Forbes learned about the existence of the furtive Collections Operations Group (insiders call it "the COG") from the results of a freedom of information act request filed with the FBI in 2017. That FOIA filing concerned a deal signed last year between tech contractor CDW Government and the Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU, pronounced "dee-too") for $1.1 million in services. DITU, part of the Operational Technology Division in Quantico, Virginia, is one of the most clandestine divisions within the FBI, helping gather crucial data for investigations and intelligence. The OTD is the overarching body that oversees bleeding edge tech development for the entire FBI.
The FBI confirmed to Forbes that the COG is a sub-unit within DITU. The agency refused to comment on the specific nature of the group and its operations. But there's some tantalizing new information nonetheless: according to the FOIA response, the COG's mission "is to provide tools, expertise and solutions to effect lawfully-authorized electronic surveillance of data communications on today's evolving local area network and internet technologies. The COG is responsible for the procurement, development and deployment of network equipment to assist in electronic surveillance to various field offices and OGAs."
OGA stands for “other government agency.” As previously revealed in NSA files leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 detailing the now-infamous PRISM espionage initiative, one of DITU's roles sees it collect data from technology and telecom companies (whether that's Facebook, Google, Microsoft or your phone and internet provider) before turning it over to intelligence agencies (which could be the DIA, CIA and NSA).
The COG is core to that intelligence sharing both within the FBI and outside the agency. Sources tell Forbes the COG is a go-between surveillance shop, setting up spy tools and associated networking across the FBI or whatever agency demands its services, and helping shift intel between them. Forbes spoke with multiple sources in the security and intelligence fields who claimed knowledge of DITU and its sub-units. All asked to remain anonymous.
"Think of it like this: it's a technical group that oversees technical capabilities so that when lawful requests are issued on providers, and the data they return needs to be analyzed, it can be converted to human-readable formats," said a person with knowledge of the COG. “Often, raw network data comes back in many forms and these teams work to make sure that the special agents and investigative teams can properly interpret the data."
What kinds of equipment does the COG build and deploy in order to capture data? Sources who previously worked in the national intelligence community say it was probably technology such as pole-mounted boxes that capture wireless network traffic, or devices installed at ISPs that vacuum up data.
As for the WiFi Group, it's another DITU sub-unit "responsible for the deployment and installation of communications equipment to support ongoing criminal, counter-terrorism and foreign counter-intelligence investigations," according to a FOIA response for another CDW contract. That 2014 deal, for unspecified surveillance equipment, was worth just $26,571.
It's easy to see why the FBI would want such capabilities. But, looking at the COG, cross-agency sharing of intelligence and surveillance resources conducted by a group unknown to the public (until now) has civil liberties folk worried.
"Unfortunately law enforcement agencies spying on their own citizens' communications is a trend that is steadily increasing around the world. When these groups operate in secret there is no way for the public to confirm that they are operating with all due legal restraint as required by their nation's laws," said Cooper Quintin, security researcher and technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"There's far too much secrecy when it comes to the FBI's spying on Americans' internet activities. This surveillance has the potential to be very broad, putting large amounts of sensitive information in the hands of an agency responsible for domestic criminal investigations. Americans need to know more about the reach of this surveillance, how it affects them and how it is legally justified," added Patrick Toomey, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project.
One former intelligence agency analyst who reviewed the information Forbes gathered on the COG and DITU said it appeared they were carrying out signals intelligence (SIGINT), the collection and analysis of traffic as it crosses the internet. This, intelligence geeks know, falls under the charter and thus is typically the domain of the NSA, not the FBI. (This may simply come down to semantics; SIGINT could apply to any form of data collection and analysis. Some disagree the FBI is collecting and analyzing giant sets of internet data like other government intel agencies. As one source put it: "They are not doing hardcore, NSA-type SIGINT").
"The fact that the FBI operates in multiple spaces makes this SIGINT capability extremely concerning for civil rights," the ex-analyst said. "The concerns were much less when they had the wall between intel and law enforcement… Now that there's no 'wall' separating the two, you're left to trust that information gained from intelligence activities is not being used for law enforcement."
And there's more to worry about than parallel construction. "Simply making it easier to share this data and information also worries us as in this era of big data," Joseph Lorenzo-Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told Forbes. "There are very few assurances that the data is protected well and won't essentially be used at some point in a panopticon-like mechanism that we're seeing in places like China, where every little detail controls opportunities available to certain segments of society."
If it's to stick to the letter of the law, government agencies must obtain court approval prior to spying on targets in a criminal investigation, whether or not that investigation is borne on the back of snooping in another probe. "To put it conceptually, the government needs to have shown probable cause to obtain the court’s approval for each criminal investigation it is conducting against the individual," said a legal representative for a major technology company.
Whatever the ethical quandaries at play, the nature of DITU and its sub-units' work is, on the face of it, entirely legal. "It's certainly true that pursuant to law, the bureau can and does collect a broad range of metadata for use in both criminal cases and domestic intelligence work," said Daniel Richman, professor of law at Columbia Law School. Richman is a confidant of former FBI director James Comey, as revealed last year when he leaked memos detailing conversations Comey had with President Trump.
Richman added: "And pursuant to warrants, it has engaged in various network exploitations, what some call 'legal hacking'. Whether or not you call that collection SIGINT, the Bureau is the primary domestic intelligence agency."
The FBI declined to comment for this Forbes article.
For the complete Forbes report click here: Revealed: Two Secret Cogs In The FBI National Surveillance Machine
11/3/17
The Netherlands: Microsoft Signs New PPA for Wind Farm Electricity in the Netherlands - by Alyssa Danigelis
Microsoft signed a PPA with the Swedish state-owned energy company
Vattenfall to purchase all the electricity produced from a new
180-megawatt wind farm being built in the Netherlands, according to an announcement this week. The farm will be located in the Wieringermeer polder, near Amsterdam, next to Microsoft’s data center operations.
The 10-year deal, one of the largest wind PPAs in the Netherlands, is Vattenfall’s first with a data center outside Nordic countries. Nuon, part of Vattenfall, will be responsible for constructing and operating the wind farm. Eventually the company plans to expand the project to include 100 windmills, according to Microsoft. “That will allow the production of approximately 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of renewable electricity,” the announcement says.
The tech giant’s data center operations in the Netherlands are a regional hub for Microsoft Cloud service customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. Vattenfall and Microsoft already had a partnership prior to the PPA — the energy company uses Microsoft’s cloud-based tools for its business operations including the enterprise platform Azure for analytics.
Lately Microsoft has been on a roll with renewable energy. Last month the company signed a deal for 100% of the energy produced by GE’s new 37-megawatt wind farm in Ireland. Recently Microsoft opened a pilot for a data center in Seattle that uses integrated fuel cells and natural gas rather than power from the electrical grid. The company’s Cloud Infrastructure and Operations team hopes the fuel cells can one day work with renewable biogas instead.
The Wieringermeer site currently has 93 turbines that are set to be replaced with more powerful machines, Wind Power Monthly reported. “Combined with an adjacent extension the project’s additional capacity of 115 MW, Wieringermeer will have 100 turbines in total with a total capacity of 295 MW when completed,” reporter Craig Richard wrote. “Vattenfall will own 82 of these turbines, the nearby Energy Research Center of the Netherlands will own 17, and the remaining turbine will be reserved for local residents, the developer said.”
Construction on Vattenfall’s new wind farm is planned to start next year. The partners expect additional generation capacity to become available in 2020. Once the project is completed, it will likely be one of the largest wind farms in the Netherlands.
Read more: Microsoft Signs New PPA for Wind Farm Electricity in the Netherlands - Energy Manager Today
The 10-year deal, one of the largest wind PPAs in the Netherlands, is Vattenfall’s first with a data center outside Nordic countries. Nuon, part of Vattenfall, will be responsible for constructing and operating the wind farm. Eventually the company plans to expand the project to include 100 windmills, according to Microsoft. “That will allow the production of approximately 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of renewable electricity,” the announcement says.
The tech giant’s data center operations in the Netherlands are a regional hub for Microsoft Cloud service customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. Vattenfall and Microsoft already had a partnership prior to the PPA — the energy company uses Microsoft’s cloud-based tools for its business operations including the enterprise platform Azure for analytics.
Lately Microsoft has been on a roll with renewable energy. Last month the company signed a deal for 100% of the energy produced by GE’s new 37-megawatt wind farm in Ireland. Recently Microsoft opened a pilot for a data center in Seattle that uses integrated fuel cells and natural gas rather than power from the electrical grid. The company’s Cloud Infrastructure and Operations team hopes the fuel cells can one day work with renewable biogas instead.
The Wieringermeer site currently has 93 turbines that are set to be replaced with more powerful machines, Wind Power Monthly reported. “Combined with an adjacent extension the project’s additional capacity of 115 MW, Wieringermeer will have 100 turbines in total with a total capacity of 295 MW when completed,” reporter Craig Richard wrote. “Vattenfall will own 82 of these turbines, the nearby Energy Research Center of the Netherlands will own 17, and the remaining turbine will be reserved for local residents, the developer said.”
Construction on Vattenfall’s new wind farm is planned to start next year. The partners expect additional generation capacity to become available in 2020. Once the project is completed, it will likely be one of the largest wind farms in the Netherlands.
Read more: Microsoft Signs New PPA for Wind Farm Electricity in the Netherlands - Energy Manager Today
10/9/17
EU: Ireland - Microsoft inks 15-year deal to buy energy from GE's new wind farm in Ireland - by Paul Sawers
 |
| GE’s new 37-megawatt wind farm in County Kerry, Ireland |
Through this deal, the duo will also delve into energy storage solutions that look at ways to harness excess energy and distribute it back into the national grid. “This will better enable intermittent clean power sources, like wind energy, to be added to the Irish grid,” Microsoft said in a press release, noting that this will be the first major implementation of batteries in wind turbines in Europe.
Ireland plays a key role in Microsoft’s global cloud service provisions, and it serves as the data center hub for the company’s Azure North Europe region. The computing giant announced Dublin as its first data center location in Europe back in 2007, and it went on to build three data centers in Clondalkin, a small town on the outskirts of the Irish capital. Last year, Microsoft received approval to build four more data centers in the same location.
The demand for cloud services has grown significantly, with a recent Gartner report indicating that the public cloud services market would grow 18 percent this year to $246.8 billion. This is leading to a major push from cloud service providers, including Microsoft, which recently beat both Amazon and Google to announce its first African data centers — expected to open in 2018.
Last month, Google announced its first Cloud Platform region in South America, where both Microsoft and Amazon have already provided cloud services for several years.
Read more: Microsoft inks 15-year deal to buy energy from GE's new wind farm in Ireland | VentureBeat
1/26/17
The Have and Have's not: Bill Gates could become world’s first trillionaire
Microsoft founder Bill Gates could become the first dollar trillionaire
in 25 years, according to Oxfam, an international network of
organizations collectively working to tackle global poverty.
Given the exponential growth of his wealth Gates would have earned his first $1 trillion by the time he is 86 in 2042.
When Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2006, his was worth $50 billion. In the next decade his wealth has increased to $75 billion, "despite his commendable attempts to give it away through his Foundation," the report said, as quoted by CNBC.
Read more: Bill Gates could become world’s first trillionaire — RT Business
Given the exponential growth of his wealth Gates would have earned his first $1 trillion by the time he is 86 in 2042.
When Bill Gates left Microsoft in 2006, his was worth $50 billion. In the next decade his wealth has increased to $75 billion, "despite his commendable attempts to give it away through his Foundation," the report said, as quoted by CNBC.
Read more: Bill Gates could become world’s first trillionaire — RT Business
12/19/16
Computer Industry: Apple has set up a secret office in Berlin to 'cherrypick' mapping engineers from HERE
Apple has hired at least half a dozen employees from Here for a Berlin-based Apple Maps team, according to LinkedIn, but the true figure is likely to be somewhat higher.
A source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Apple strategically moved in on Here's talent as the mapping company was passed from Nokia to Microsoft to the German automotive group.
"It's a simple story: Here was in disarray after Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia," said the source, who works in the Berlin tech scene. "Apple saw the opportunity and opened an office in Berlin, specifically to siphon Geo Information Systems (GIS) talent."
The person added: "Three people independently complained to me that Apple opened an office in Berlin specifically to cherrypick at Here." This claim was backed up by another source on the ground in Berlin.
Here, which provides mapping data, software and services to the automotive, consumer and enterprise sectors, was "bleeding talent" as Microsoft's deal with the German car consortium went through, the source said. "Things are getting a bit better now, but GIS talent is rare."
Read more: Apple has set up a secret office in Berlin to 'cherrypick' mapping engineers from Here
A source, who wished to remain anonymous, said that Apple strategically moved in on Here's talent as the mapping company was passed from Nokia to Microsoft to the German automotive group.
"It's a simple story: Here was in disarray after Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia," said the source, who works in the Berlin tech scene. "Apple saw the opportunity and opened an office in Berlin, specifically to siphon Geo Information Systems (GIS) talent."
The person added: "Three people independently complained to me that Apple opened an office in Berlin specifically to cherrypick at Here." This claim was backed up by another source on the ground in Berlin.
Here, which provides mapping data, software and services to the automotive, consumer and enterprise sectors, was "bleeding talent" as Microsoft's deal with the German car consortium went through, the source said. "Things are getting a bit better now, but GIS talent is rare."
Read more: Apple has set up a secret office in Berlin to 'cherrypick' mapping engineers from Here
12/17/16
Hate Speech: US tech giants not acting fast enough on hate speech, EU charges
Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft are not acting quickly enough to tackle hate speech, according to the European Commission, which has told the companies to get their act together.
If the Silicon Valley companies do not speed up their response to tackling illegal hate speech on their platforms, they will be be held accountable under European law, the Commission said Sunday.
Back in May, the companies all voluntarily signed up to a code of conduct, in which they promised to remove hate speech within 24 hours of it being posted and to promote counter-narratives. The code arose from concerns about a proliferation of hate speech on the platforms following a spate of terror attacks in Europe and amid the refugee crisis.
Signing the code was an alternative to the EU drawing up laws on the matter. But now the EU Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova, has said that the Commission may be forced to enact laws after all, as only 40 percent of posts are being removed within the time frame.
"If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months," she told the Financial Times.
Read more: US tech giants not acting fast enough on hate speech, EU charges - CNET
If the Silicon Valley companies do not speed up their response to tackling illegal hate speech on their platforms, they will be be held accountable under European law, the Commission said Sunday.
Back in May, the companies all voluntarily signed up to a code of conduct, in which they promised to remove hate speech within 24 hours of it being posted and to promote counter-narratives. The code arose from concerns about a proliferation of hate speech on the platforms following a spate of terror attacks in Europe and amid the refugee crisis.
Signing the code was an alternative to the EU drawing up laws on the matter. But now the EU Commissioner for Justice, Vera Jourova, has said that the Commission may be forced to enact laws after all, as only 40 percent of posts are being removed within the time frame.
"If Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft want to convince me and the ministers that the non-legislative approach can work, they will have to act quickly and make a strong effort in the coming months," she told the Financial Times.
Read more: US tech giants not acting fast enough on hate speech, EU charges - CNET
6/13/16
Social Media: Microsoft to buy LinkedIn for $26bn - by Chris Johnston
Microsoft is buying the professional networking website LinkedIn for just over $26bn (£18bn) in cash.
The deal will help Microsoft boost sales of its business and email software.
Microsoft said that LinkedIn would retain its "distinct brand, culture and independence".
Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight, said the deal would give Microsoft access to the world's biggest professional social network with more than 430 million members worldwide.
Read more: Microsoft to buy LinkedIn for $26bn - BBC News
9/22/15
Internet: EU lawmakers fight cries of ‘digital protectionism - by Adam Sneed
As Europe’s digital chief heads stateside today, a coalition of EU
lawmakers is speaking out against accusations that their continent is
engaging in “digital protectionism.” Those claims have come from a
number of American officials and executives — including President Barack
Obama — in light of Europe’s efforts to unify its digital market as
well as regulatory actions against Apple, Google, Amazon and others.
“As Members of European Parliament we are surprised and concerned about the strong statements coming from U.S. sources about regulatory and legislative proposals on the digital agenda for the EU,” they write in a statement to be released today, signed by more than 50 lawmakers. “The political debates on the way forward are not a 'Transatlantic rift' and should not be made into one. Rather they represent different views and beliefs that run right through our societies. We consider close cooperation between the EU and the U.S. as vital in a changing world.”
EU commissioner for digital affairs, told The Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He’s starting a U.S. trip today to meet with government officials and Silicon Valley executives, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, where he’ll try to ease concerns that the EU’s actions are targeting the American tech sector (http://on.wsj.com/1Fbpbrw). Oettinger is scheduled to speak more on the subject Thursday morning at the Center for Transatlantic Relations
Read more: EU lawmakers fight cries of ‘digital protectionism - POLI
“As Members of European Parliament we are surprised and concerned about the strong statements coming from U.S. sources about regulatory and legislative proposals on the digital agenda for the EU,” they write in a statement to be released today, signed by more than 50 lawmakers. “The political debates on the way forward are not a 'Transatlantic rift' and should not be made into one. Rather they represent different views and beliefs that run right through our societies. We consider close cooperation between the EU and the U.S. as vital in a changing world.”
EU commissioner for digital affairs, told The Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He’s starting a U.S. trip today to meet with government officials and Silicon Valley executives, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, where he’ll try to ease concerns that the EU’s actions are targeting the American tech sector (http://on.wsj.com/1Fbpbrw). Oettinger is scheduled to speak more on the subject Thursday morning at the Center for Transatlantic Relations
Read more: EU lawmakers fight cries of ‘digital protectionism - POLI
9/17/15
Microsoft: Windows 10 Downloads = Microsoft Update Silently Steals Gigabytes Of Storage Space - by Mke Brown
Microsoft has confirmed that it downloads Windows 10 files
to computers just in case users decide to upgrade. The company wants to
make the migration to Win10 as efficient as possible, but the files take
up somewhere between 3.5 to 6GB of disk space.
The situation was first reported by an anonymous reader at The Inquirer, who found the "~BT" folder used for storing copies of Windows 10 had appeared on his system, despite the user not expressing any interest in upgrading.
"I know of two instances where people on metered connections went over their data cap for August because of this unwanted download," he said. "My own Internet (slow DSL) was crawling for a week or so until I discovered this problem."
Microsoft confirmed the problem in a statement to the publication. "For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they’ll need if they decide to upgrade," the statement read.
Read more: Windows 10 Downloads Secretly Onto PCs: Microsoft Update Silently Steals Gigabytes Of Storage Space
The situation was first reported by an anonymous reader at The Inquirer, who found the "~BT" folder used for storing copies of Windows 10 had appeared on his system, despite the user not expressing any interest in upgrading.
"I know of two instances where people on metered connections went over their data cap for August because of this unwanted download," he said. "My own Internet (slow DSL) was crawling for a week or so until I discovered this problem."
Microsoft confirmed the problem in a statement to the publication. "For individuals who have chosen to receive automatic updates through Windows Update, we help upgradable devices get ready for Windows 10 by downloading the files they’ll need if they decide to upgrade," the statement read.
Read more: Windows 10 Downloads Secretly Onto PCs: Microsoft Update Silently Steals Gigabytes Of Storage Space
4/3/15
Spying is bad for business: NSA spying caused 9 percent of foreign firms to dump U.S. clouds - by Mike Wheatley
In the weeks following Edward Snowden’s revelations of the NSA’s
massive web surveillance program PRISM, speculation was raised about the negative implications it could have on U.S. cloud companies.
Now, Forrester Research has taken the time to see just what kind of impact it has had, asking a host of foreign firms whether or not PRISM has caused them to scale back their spending on U.S. cloud services, and the answer makes for some uneasy reading.
A total of 1,668 non-U.S. business technology decision makers were quizzed in Forrester’s survey. The exact question asked was “In the past year, has your company explicitly halted or reduced your spending with US-based companies for Internet-based services (e.g., cloud, online service/outsourcing) due to these security concerns?”, with 26 percent of respondents answering in the affirmative.
Forrester followed up by asking the 427 who said yes what their reasons for doing so were, and found that 34 percent cited “fear of the intelligence community spying”. A quick sum of the math shows that 9 percent of foreign firms have therefore ditched U.S. cloud companies due to the NSA, not an insignificant number by any means, despite The Register’s insistence that “Snowden didn’t scare off many”.
It’s worth nothing that the respondents held, on average, only about a third of their company data in U.S. clouds anyway, so their decision to pull out may not be as significant as it first seems. But even so, U.S. cloud firms will still want to take notice of the survey, which indicates that most foreign companies simply don’t trust them all that much anyway, irrespective of the NSA. In total, 53 percent of respondents said they would not trust any of their critical data with a U.S. cloud company, end of story.
Read more: NSA spying caused 9 percent of foreign firms to dump U.S. clouds | SiliconANGLE
Now, Forrester Research has taken the time to see just what kind of impact it has had, asking a host of foreign firms whether or not PRISM has caused them to scale back their spending on U.S. cloud services, and the answer makes for some uneasy reading.
A total of 1,668 non-U.S. business technology decision makers were quizzed in Forrester’s survey. The exact question asked was “In the past year, has your company explicitly halted or reduced your spending with US-based companies for Internet-based services (e.g., cloud, online service/outsourcing) due to these security concerns?”, with 26 percent of respondents answering in the affirmative.
Forrester followed up by asking the 427 who said yes what their reasons for doing so were, and found that 34 percent cited “fear of the intelligence community spying”. A quick sum of the math shows that 9 percent of foreign firms have therefore ditched U.S. cloud companies due to the NSA, not an insignificant number by any means, despite The Register’s insistence that “Snowden didn’t scare off many”.
It’s worth nothing that the respondents held, on average, only about a third of their company data in U.S. clouds anyway, so their decision to pull out may not be as significant as it first seems. But even so, U.S. cloud firms will still want to take notice of the survey, which indicates that most foreign companies simply don’t trust them all that much anyway, irrespective of the NSA. In total, 53 percent of respondents said they would not trust any of their critical data with a U.S. cloud company, end of story.
Read more: NSA spying caused 9 percent of foreign firms to dump U.S. clouds | SiliconANGLE
11/23/14
The Internet: Orwellian Big Brother is a Reality: "Government in Your Internet"
From the Snowden leaks to the recent passage of the Brazilian government “Marco Civil da Internet”,
a set of legislation designed to enforce net neutrality, freedom of
expression and privacy, there is no mistaking that this is a critical
time for the internet and it’s digital citizens.
Cloud and hosting providers need to pay close attention to developing legislation and technologies to address the privacy and security needs of its customers in this fast changing environment.
Shortly after the NSA’s PRISM program was first reported, Forrester Research predicted that US cloud providers could lose up to $180 billion in business over the next three years due to concerns around the scope of surveillance the program enabled.
In a March Ted Talk Snowden said, “The best way to understand PRISM, because there has been a little bit of controversy, is to first talk about what prism isn’t. Much of the debate in the US has been about meta data. They’ve said ‘it’s just meta data, it’s just meta data’ and they’re talking about a specific legal authority called section 215 of the Patriot Act. That allows sort of a warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the entire country’s sort of phone records, things like that…PRISM is about content, it’s a program through which the government could compel corporate America, it could sort of deputize corporate America to do it’s dirty work for the NSA.”
Some companies initially resisted compliance, challenging the NSA in court, but they all lost. Later after the Snowden revelations, a new ruling forced the declassifying of the 2008 Prism decision.
“It was never tried by an open court, they were tried only by a secret court,” Snowden said. “And something that we’ve seen…15 federal judges have reviewed these programs and found them to be lawful, but what they don’t tell you is those are secret judges in a secret court based on secret interpretations of law that’s considered 34,000 warrant requests over 33 years, and in 33 years only rejected 11 government requests.
These aren’t the people that we want deciding what the role of corporate America in a free and open internet should be.”
Although the NSA continually tries to explain the measures and secrets as an important part of national security and characterizes its data collection as “only meta data”, it’s having a hard time spinning the Snowden revelations in its favor. Even late night political comedians are picking up on this topic. John Oliver addressed NSA policies Sunday in an interview with former NSA agency chief Keith Alexander which resulted in a funny yet powerful commentary on the organization.
In a blog post Monday, the NSA again addressed its policies in relation to internet security and the Heartbleed vulnerability. It explained some of its thinking on keeping threats secret.
“But there are legitimate pros and cons to the decision to disclose, and the trade-offs between prompt disclosure and withholding knowledge of some vulnerabilities for a limited time can have significant consequences,” Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator said.
“Disclosing a vulnerability can mean that we forego an opportunity to collect crucial intelligence that could thwart a terrorist attack stop the theft of our nation’s intellectual property, or even discover more dangerous vulnerabilities that are being used by hackers or other adversaries to exploit our networks.”
Discussion and news on privacy, net neutrality and data sovereignty happens daily. Multi- stakeholder governance as a means to address keeping governments out of the internet or at least equally represented is a hot topic. At the two day NetMundail conference last week, guidelines were discussed for future internet governance.
As the discussion continues to evolve it’s important for cloud and web hosting providers to stay informed of the issues and new legislation so they can best serve their customers in whatever part of the globe they happen to be. As cloud services become more prevalent and are hosted in multiple countries, service providers may be facing more restrictions based on where data is physically stored and which country has domain over the data.
The WHIR interviewed Jelle Frank van der Zwet of Interxion at World Hosting Days in Germany. When asked about the need for data centers in foreign countries, he had this to say, “If you want to do business in Germany, you must have a data center and infrastructure in Germany. That goes for Amazon, that goes for any cloud provider, small or large if you want to do business in Germany I recommend you have your infrastructure in Germany. I would say the same for France.”
His comment in the context of the greater discussion about data sovereignty and NSA backdoor access into United States based company’s data underscores the importance of where data is hosted in relation to local laws and policies, a growing concern among cloud and hosting providers.
For example, the US Supreme Court ruled recently that a government search warrant will require American companies providing internet, email, and online storage services to hand over data stored anywhere in the world.
Read more: Orwellian Big Brother is a Reality: Government in Your Internet - WHIR
Cloud and hosting providers need to pay close attention to developing legislation and technologies to address the privacy and security needs of its customers in this fast changing environment.
Shortly after the NSA’s PRISM program was first reported, Forrester Research predicted that US cloud providers could lose up to $180 billion in business over the next three years due to concerns around the scope of surveillance the program enabled.
In a March Ted Talk Snowden said, “The best way to understand PRISM, because there has been a little bit of controversy, is to first talk about what prism isn’t. Much of the debate in the US has been about meta data. They’ve said ‘it’s just meta data, it’s just meta data’ and they’re talking about a specific legal authority called section 215 of the Patriot Act. That allows sort of a warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the entire country’s sort of phone records, things like that…PRISM is about content, it’s a program through which the government could compel corporate America, it could sort of deputize corporate America to do it’s dirty work for the NSA.”
Some companies initially resisted compliance, challenging the NSA in court, but they all lost. Later after the Snowden revelations, a new ruling forced the declassifying of the 2008 Prism decision.
“It was never tried by an open court, they were tried only by a secret court,” Snowden said. “And something that we’ve seen…15 federal judges have reviewed these programs and found them to be lawful, but what they don’t tell you is those are secret judges in a secret court based on secret interpretations of law that’s considered 34,000 warrant requests over 33 years, and in 33 years only rejected 11 government requests.
These aren’t the people that we want deciding what the role of corporate America in a free and open internet should be.”
Although the NSA continually tries to explain the measures and secrets as an important part of national security and characterizes its data collection as “only meta data”, it’s having a hard time spinning the Snowden revelations in its favor. Even late night political comedians are picking up on this topic. John Oliver addressed NSA policies Sunday in an interview with former NSA agency chief Keith Alexander which resulted in a funny yet powerful commentary on the organization.
In a blog post Monday, the NSA again addressed its policies in relation to internet security and the Heartbleed vulnerability. It explained some of its thinking on keeping threats secret.
“But there are legitimate pros and cons to the decision to disclose, and the trade-offs between prompt disclosure and withholding knowledge of some vulnerabilities for a limited time can have significant consequences,” Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator said.
“Disclosing a vulnerability can mean that we forego an opportunity to collect crucial intelligence that could thwart a terrorist attack stop the theft of our nation’s intellectual property, or even discover more dangerous vulnerabilities that are being used by hackers or other adversaries to exploit our networks.”
Discussion and news on privacy, net neutrality and data sovereignty happens daily. Multi- stakeholder governance as a means to address keeping governments out of the internet or at least equally represented is a hot topic. At the two day NetMundail conference last week, guidelines were discussed for future internet governance.
As the discussion continues to evolve it’s important for cloud and web hosting providers to stay informed of the issues and new legislation so they can best serve their customers in whatever part of the globe they happen to be. As cloud services become more prevalent and are hosted in multiple countries, service providers may be facing more restrictions based on where data is physically stored and which country has domain over the data.
The WHIR interviewed Jelle Frank van der Zwet of Interxion at World Hosting Days in Germany. When asked about the need for data centers in foreign countries, he had this to say, “If you want to do business in Germany, you must have a data center and infrastructure in Germany. That goes for Amazon, that goes for any cloud provider, small or large if you want to do business in Germany I recommend you have your infrastructure in Germany. I would say the same for France.”
His comment in the context of the greater discussion about data sovereignty and NSA backdoor access into United States based company’s data underscores the importance of where data is hosted in relation to local laws and policies, a growing concern among cloud and hosting providers.
For example, the US Supreme Court ruled recently that a government search warrant will require American companies providing internet, email, and online storage services to hand over data stored anywhere in the world.
Read more: Orwellian Big Brother is a Reality: Government in Your Internet - WHIR
11/22/14
Internet: The Cloud -No, your data isn't secure in the cloud - by Lucas Mearian
While online data storage services claim your data is encrypted, there
are no guarantees. With recent revelations that the federal government
taps into the files of Internet search engines, email and cloud service
providers, any myth about data "privacy" on the Internet has been
busted.
Experts say there's simply no way to ever be completely sure your data will remain secure once you've moved it to the cloud.
"You have no way of knowing. You can't trust anybody. Everybody is lying to you," said security expert Bruce Schneier. "How do you know which platform to trust? They could even be lying because the U.S. government has forced them to."
While providers of email, chat, social network and cloud services often claim -- even in their service agreements -- that the data they store is encrypted and private, most often they -- not you -- are the ones who hold the keys. That means a rogue employee or any government "legally" requesting encryption keys can decrypt and see your data.
Even when service providers say only customers can generate and maintain their own encryption keys, Schneier said there's no way to be sure others won't be able to gain access.
For example, Apple's SMS/MMS-like communications platform, iMessage, claims both voice and text are encrypted and can't be heard or seen by third parties. But because the product isn't open source, "there's no way for us to know how it works," said Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "It seems because of the way it works on functionality, they do have a way to access it. The same goes for iCloud."
Note EU-Digest: The Cloud services are also offered to European Internet users. Given that the storage data banks of Google, and Apple for Cloud and other similar systems are kept in the US by American companies, and consequently fall under US jurisdiction, it probably would not be a good idea for EU citizens and businesses to store sensitive material on these data bank services.
Read more: No, your data isn't secure in the cloud | Computerworld
Experts say there's simply no way to ever be completely sure your data will remain secure once you've moved it to the cloud.
"You have no way of knowing. You can't trust anybody. Everybody is lying to you," said security expert Bruce Schneier. "How do you know which platform to trust? They could even be lying because the U.S. government has forced them to."
While providers of email, chat, social network and cloud services often claim -- even in their service agreements -- that the data they store is encrypted and private, most often they -- not you -- are the ones who hold the keys. That means a rogue employee or any government "legally" requesting encryption keys can decrypt and see your data.
Even when service providers say only customers can generate and maintain their own encryption keys, Schneier said there's no way to be sure others won't be able to gain access.
For example, Apple's SMS/MMS-like communications platform, iMessage, claims both voice and text are encrypted and can't be heard or seen by third parties. But because the product isn't open source, "there's no way for us to know how it works," said Dan Auerbach, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "It seems because of the way it works on functionality, they do have a way to access it. The same goes for iCloud."
Note EU-Digest: The Cloud services are also offered to European Internet users. Given that the storage data banks of Google, and Apple for Cloud and other similar systems are kept in the US by American companies, and consequently fall under US jurisdiction, it probably would not be a good idea for EU citizens and businesses to store sensitive material on these data bank services.
Read more: No, your data isn't secure in the cloud | Computerworld
7/31/14
EU Personal Privacy Violations: US judge orders Microsoft to produce emails held abroad - by Charles Cooper
A USA federal judge said Thursday that Microsoft can't prevent the US
Department of Justice from obtaining emails stored in a data center
overseas in a case that has raised concern among Internet privacy groups
and technology companies.
Chief US District Judge Loretta Preska today ordered Microsoft to comply with a December warrant allowing the DOJ to obtain a customer's email-account data stored in Dublin, Ireland. The US government is seeking the emails in connection with a criminal investigation.
At the same time, the judge said she would stay her order temporarily, a decision that will let Microsoft appeal her decision to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The outcome of this debate may reinforce concerns around the world that the data of their citizens is not safe with Microsoft and other US tech companies if US intelligence or law enforcement seek to gain access to the information.
All this began last December when a New York judge issued a search warrant seeking records and emails from a Microsoft account in a case connected with a criminal investigation. After concluding that the emails investigators sought were located on one of its servers in Dublin, Ireland, Microsoft refused.
The company maintained that a US judge has no authority to hand out warrants for search and seizure of property or data abroad. The judge later rejected Microsoft's request to quash the warrant.
Read more: US judge orders Microsoft to produce emails held abroad - CNET
Chief US District Judge Loretta Preska today ordered Microsoft to comply with a December warrant allowing the DOJ to obtain a customer's email-account data stored in Dublin, Ireland. The US government is seeking the emails in connection with a criminal investigation.
At the same time, the judge said she would stay her order temporarily, a decision that will let Microsoft appeal her decision to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The outcome of this debate may reinforce concerns around the world that the data of their citizens is not safe with Microsoft and other US tech companies if US intelligence or law enforcement seek to gain access to the information.
All this began last December when a New York judge issued a search warrant seeking records and emails from a Microsoft account in a case connected with a criminal investigation. After concluding that the emails investigators sought were located on one of its servers in Dublin, Ireland, Microsoft refused.
The company maintained that a US judge has no authority to hand out warrants for search and seizure of property or data abroad. The judge later rejected Microsoft's request to quash the warrant.
Read more: US judge orders Microsoft to produce emails held abroad - CNET
11/6/13
Social Media: Apple, Google, Microsoft unite against NSA spying program but do they have "clean hands" themselves?
US Freedom act letter reports that the top US tech companies are sharpening their blades in their battle with the National Security Agency. While they've been doggedly asking for transparency on the agency's mass surveillance program for months, they're now calling for reform.Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and AOL penned a letter (pdf) to the lead members of the Senate Judiciary Committee recently urging the lawmakers to substantially reform the NSA surveillance practices. The companies also asked for additional oversight and accountability mechanisms for the spying programs.
If one digs a little deeper into this several questions arise.
Have, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and other IT done this as a calculated PR move to focus their customers attention and Public entities like the EU Commission away from their own privacy issues with these companies to the NSA, today's favorite whipping boy?
Let us not forget that Google may have gotten out of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) antitrust investigation without much of a penalty earlier this year, but the European Commission is still after them for a variety of issues.It is well known that Google has been in hot water around the world for collecting Wi-Fi data using its Street View vehicles.
German regulators say that Google's vehicles already captured data such as the contents of e-mails, passwords, photos, and chat protocols using its cars between 2008 and 2010.
Microsoft Corp has been recently fined 561 million euros ($731 million) for failing to offer users a choice of web browser, an unprecedented sanction that will act as a warning to other firms involved in EU antitrust disputes.
It said the U.S. software company had broken a legally binding commitment made in 2009 to the EU which ensured that consumers had a choice of how they access the internet, rather than defaulting to Microsoft's Explorer browser.
As to Apple. Carriers throughout Europe have sent information regarding their contracts with Apple to the European Commission saying that Apple's rules for carrying the iPhone are anticompetitive.
While Apple's terms are different from carrier to carrier, a major complaint from the European carriers is that Apple forces them to sell a certain amount of iPhones over a determined amount of time. If the carrier does not meet this quota, then they must pay Apple for the unsold devices.
This isn't Apple's first run-in with the European Commission. In December 2011, Apple and book publishers Penguin, Harper Collins (News Corp., USA), Simon & Schuster (CBS Corp., USA), Hachette Livre (Lagardère Publishing France) and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck (owner of inter-alia Macmillan, Germany) were under the microscope when the EU found out about their selling practices.
It is essential say lawmakers that when new laws are drawn up regarding privacy, protection of information, anti-trust abuses etc., these laws must cover all the players, without exception, from both the Private and Public sector.
Bottom line: In the meantime people who live in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones.
EU-Digest 10/21/13
Privacy Laws - The EU could seize 25% of Google’s profits if it violates your privacy - by Leo Mirani
Last year, Google made $50 billion in global revenue, of which $10.7 billion was profit. If the European Union’s draft bill on data protection becomes law, the company will have to pay a fine of up to 5% of worldwide annual turnover—$2.5 billion in 2012, representing nearly 25% of its profits—if it doesn’t comply. This evening, a European Parliament committee pushed the legislation one crucial step closer to becoming law.
The data protection regulation, as it is known, is perhaps the most significant piece of legislation to come out of the European Commission this term. It is fraught with political and economic meaning. The law (pdf) sets out wide-ranging new rules for how personal data is treated within Europe. Among other things, it tightens rules on how companies can collect and process data. It also makes it easier for users of an online service to move between networks or to request wholesale deletion of their data (otherwise known as the “right to be forgotten”). And it lays out punitive fines (pdf) for companies that break the rules, for example by collecting an individual’s data without consent or refusing to delete it.
The US and its tech companies are not particularly happy about the new legislation and have been lobbying against it. European countries with softer laws have also been less keen to support the bill. And some claim the law could pose a risk to free-trade talks between the two blocs.
Note EU-Digest: One can only hope for EU politicians not to chicken out and that they will adopt strong and effective legislation against what seems to be total disregard by the US of EU privacy laws, and that legislators will not get bamboozled by sweet talking lobbyists.
Read more: The EU could seize 25% of Google’s profits if it violates your privacy - Quartz
The data protection regulation, as it is known, is perhaps the most significant piece of legislation to come out of the European Commission this term. It is fraught with political and economic meaning. The law (pdf) sets out wide-ranging new rules for how personal data is treated within Europe. Among other things, it tightens rules on how companies can collect and process data. It also makes it easier for users of an online service to move between networks or to request wholesale deletion of their data (otherwise known as the “right to be forgotten”). And it lays out punitive fines (pdf) for companies that break the rules, for example by collecting an individual’s data without consent or refusing to delete it.
The law’s effects will be felt far outside the European Union. Europe’s position is that any company that does business within its boundaries will be subject to its rules, never mind the ease with which data flows across borders or the difficulties national governments face in pinning down where exactly a company conducts its business. The Europe-wide law will replace the data protection directive of 1995, which set guidelines that the EU’s member states applied to their own jurisdictions. That meant a patchwork of disparate laws across the continent, with countries with looser laws—notably, Ireland—becoming hubs for non-EU companies.
+
Whether as a block or individually, Europe has for years been suspicious of the power wielded by American companies. France doesn’t like the economic clout they enjoy. Germany has a strong dislike for the easy data rules enacted by some EU members. And nobody really believes that the “safe harbor” agreement between the US and the EU to safeguard Europeans’ data is working. Moreover, Viviane Reding, the bureaucrat responsible for the legislation, is said to harbor ambitions to become the next president of the European Commission. Pushing through this law before her terms expires next year would represent a significant victory.
Note EU-Digest: One can only hope for EU politicians not to chicken out and that they will adopt strong and effective legislation against what seems to be total disregard by the US of EU privacy laws, and that legislators will not get bamboozled by sweet talking lobbyists.
Read more: The EU could seize 25% of Google’s profits if it violates your privacy - Quartz
9/11/13
Internet: Skype still calling the shots – but competitors are gaining
On August 29, 2003, a small Estonian start-up called Skype was born. Ten years later, the internet phone service has become one of the most downloaded software programs ever released.
Fans laud it as the only truly successful European tech start-up of the last decade.
The company, founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, has thrived because it brings the world closer together in an age when globalisation and intercontinental travel is pulling more families apart than at perhaps any other time in history.
In a blog post released last week to commemorate its 10th birthday, Skype said that a cumulative 1.4 trillion minutes of voice and video calls had been made using its service.
The company also highlighted some of the most incredible moments captured by people using Skype, including the story of a soldier witnessing the birth of his child from Iraq and a call from the top of Mount Everest. Famous Skype users include Britain's royal family, Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.
Owner Microsoft claims that one-third of all international telephone calls now go through Skype. And in the surest sign of success, its brand name has become a verb – a rare distinction shared by the likes of Xerox and Google.
But though the service is incredibly popular, there are plenty of others snapping at its heels. Skype's most prominent competitor is Apple's FaceTime, available on iPhone and iPads.
Viber, an app popular with smartphone users, is also a direct competitor, as is messaging service WhatsApp. But Skype is still by far the market leader when it comes to calls rather than messaging. Its speed, simplicity and flexibility on multiple platforms have managed to keep users coming back.
It was sold to eBay in 2005 for about $2.5bn, and then to a group of venture capital firms in 2009.
In 2011, Microsoft bought the company for an impressive $8.5bn. Since then it has been busy integrating the service into several of its products, including Outlook.com.
So what's next? Technology companies live and die by their ability to innovate, and Skype is no different.
The company is currently developing a way to make and receive 3D video calls.
In an interview with the BBC, Skype's corporate vice-president Mark Gillett said the process was possible but difficult to replicate outside of a lab.
Read more: Skype still calling the shots – but competitors are gaining - Independent.ie
Fans laud it as the only truly successful European tech start-up of the last decade.
The company, founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, has thrived because it brings the world closer together in an age when globalisation and intercontinental travel is pulling more families apart than at perhaps any other time in history.
In a blog post released last week to commemorate its 10th birthday, Skype said that a cumulative 1.4 trillion minutes of voice and video calls had been made using its service.
The company also highlighted some of the most incredible moments captured by people using Skype, including the story of a soldier witnessing the birth of his child from Iraq and a call from the top of Mount Everest. Famous Skype users include Britain's royal family, Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.
Owner Microsoft claims that one-third of all international telephone calls now go through Skype. And in the surest sign of success, its brand name has become a verb – a rare distinction shared by the likes of Xerox and Google.
But though the service is incredibly popular, there are plenty of others snapping at its heels. Skype's most prominent competitor is Apple's FaceTime, available on iPhone and iPads.
Viber, an app popular with smartphone users, is also a direct competitor, as is messaging service WhatsApp. But Skype is still by far the market leader when it comes to calls rather than messaging. Its speed, simplicity and flexibility on multiple platforms have managed to keep users coming back.
It was sold to eBay in 2005 for about $2.5bn, and then to a group of venture capital firms in 2009.
In 2011, Microsoft bought the company for an impressive $8.5bn. Since then it has been busy integrating the service into several of its products, including Outlook.com.
So what's next? Technology companies live and die by their ability to innovate, and Skype is no different.
The company is currently developing a way to make and receive 3D video calls.
In an interview with the BBC, Skype's corporate vice-president Mark Gillett said the process was possible but difficult to replicate outside of a lab.
Read more: Skype still calling the shots – but competitors are gaining - Independent.ie
7/17/13
Germany: Merkel Urges Europe to Tighten Safeguards and Rules on US Internet Companies - by James Kanter
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is calling for the European Union to adopt legislation requiring Internet companies to disclose what information about users they store and to whom they provide it.
Ms. Merkel’s remarks, in a television interview on Sunday night, reflected the anger throughout much of Europe, including Germany, over recent accounts of government surveillance by the United States National Security Agency. Those accounts, in government documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor, included the agency’s compilation of logs of virtually all telephone calls in the United States and its collection of e-mails of foreigners from the major American Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and Skype.
Read more: Merkel Urges Europe to Tighten Internet Safeguards - NYTimes.com
Ms. Merkel’s remarks, in a television interview on Sunday night, reflected the anger throughout much of Europe, including Germany, over recent accounts of government surveillance by the United States National Security Agency. Those accounts, in government documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden, a former N.S.A. contractor, included the agency’s compilation of logs of virtually all telephone calls in the United States and its collection of e-mails of foreigners from the major American Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple and Skype.
Those companies have already begun aggressive lobbying campaigns to stop or dilute tighter privacy rules, which they say would interfere with their business models and decrease profits and growth. The companies’ efforts are, in turn, supported by countries like England and Ireland that fear that such restrictions would hamper economic recovery.
Unlike many citizens in the United States, whose desire to prevent the kind of widespread terrorist attacks like those of Sept. 11, 2001, often trumps their concerns about privacy rights and government surveillance, Germans have experienced the corruption of those rights under the Nazis and later the Communist government of East Germany, making them far more sensitive to the issue. Until now, though, Germany has been slow to back an aggressive privacy initiative across Europe partly because the country’s laws are among the tightest in the bloc.
Ms. Merkel said she now believed that only a broader pact could be effective. “That has to be part of such a data privacy agreement because we have great regulation for Germany, but if Facebook is registered in Ireland, then it falls under Irish jurisdiction,” she said. “Consequently we need a common European agreement.”
Note EU-Digest: the EU Parliament and the EU Commission hopefully will act immediately on these suggestions by Mrs. Merkel. The situation in relation to privacy rights of EU Citizens and the flagrant abuses by foreign internet companies of these rights is completely getting out of hand.
Read more: Merkel Urges Europe to Tighten Internet Safeguards - NYTimes.com
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