EU Privacy Laws: EU questions U.S. over Yahoo email scanning, amid privacy concerns - by Julia Fioretti

Big Brother In The USA Watching Us 

The European Commission has asked the United States about a secret court order Yahoo (YHOO.O) used to scan thousands of customer emails for possible terrorism links, following concerns that may have violated a new data transfer pact.

Under the Privacy Shield agreement that came into force in August, the United States agreed to limit the collection of and access to Europeans' data stored on U.S. servers because of EU concerns about data privacy and mass U.S. surveillance.

The previous deal was thrown out by the EU's top court in October 2015, leaving thousands of firms scrambling for legal ways to provide data on transactions ranging from credit cards to travel and e-commerce that underpin billions of dollars of transatlantic trade.

Reuters reported last month that Yahoo had scanned all incoming customer emails in 2015 for a digital signature linked to a foreign state sponsor of terrorism, at the behest of a secret court order. That raised fresh questions about the scope of U.S. spying.

"The Commission services have contacted the U.S. authorities to ask for a number of clarifications," Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said.

The United States had pledged not to engage in mass, indiscriminate espionage, assuaging Commission concerns about the privacy of Europeans' data stored on U.S. servers following disclosures of intrusive U.S. surveillance programs in 2013 by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Two people familiar with the matter said the Commission had now asked the United States to explain how the Yahoo order fitted with its commitments, even if the program ran before the Privacy Shield was in place.

The Commission was seeking clarifications on the nature of the court order itself and how targeted it was, said one person familiar with the matter. Another said it had also asked if the program was continuing.

"The U.S. will be held accountable to these commitments both through review mechanisms and through redress possibilities, including the newly established Ombudsperson mechanism in the U.S. State Department," Wigand said.

Privacy Shield, which Yahoo has not signed up to, provides for a joint annual review to ensure the United States is respecting its commitment to limit the amount of data hoovered up by U.S. agents.

A senior U.S. government official said he could not confirm or deny the reports about Yahoo, but said if true the surveillance would have been targeted at identifying terrorists while protecting the privacy of others.

That would be "good intelligence work," he said.

Reuters

Privacy Violations: Yahoo "complies with NSA and FBI requests to scan customers' emails" -

Yahoo is said to have built a custom-made software program to scan all of its clients’ incoming emails on behalf of the US government.

Reuters reports the company complied with a classified directive, issued in 2015. The searches were requested by the FBI and the NSA, three sources claimed.

Exactly what intelligence officials were looking for is not known, neither is the type of data Yahoo may have handed over, or if other email providers were approached with similar requests.

The claims come just under two weeks after the technology company announced hackers had stolen data on a number of its users.

Read more: Yahoo "complies with NSA and FBI requests to scan customers' emails" - reports

Spying: National Security Agency broke into Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MS Hotmail - Charlie Savage, Claire Cain Miller and Nicole Perlroth

The National Security Agency and its British counterpart have apparently tapped the fiber-optic cables connecting Google's and Yahoo's overseas servers and are copying vast amounts of email and other information, according to accounts of documents leaked by former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.

In partnership with the British agency known as Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the NSA has apparently taken advantage of the vast amounts of data stored in and traveling among global data centers, which run all modern online computing, according to a report Wednesday by The Washington Post. NSA collection activities abroad face fewer legal restrictions and less oversight than its actions in the United States.

Google and Yahoo said Wednesday that they were unaware of government accessing of their data links. Sarah Meron, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said that the company had not cooperated with any government agency for such interception, and David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, expressed outrage.

"We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we have continued to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links," Drummond said in a statement. "We do not provide any government, including the U.S. government, with access to our systems. We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform."

Note EU-Digest: the other question which obviously arises and needs to be addressed by the EU Parliament and Commission is how Britain, a member of the EU, has (is) participating willingly with the NSA in these matters without the EU Commission or the EU member states having any knowledge of it.

Read more: National Security Agency broke into Yahoo, Google, Facebook, MS Hotmail - The Economic Times

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.

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

Netherlands has turned into a Super Cayman style Tax Haven as Yahoo, Dell Swell Netherlands’ $13 Trillion Tax Haven

Inside Reindert Dooves’s home, a 17th- century, three-story converted warehouse along the Zaan canal in suburban Amsterdam, a 21st-century Internet giant is avoiding taxes.

The bookkeeper’s home office doubles as the headquarters for a Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) offshore unit. Through this sun-filled, white- walled room, Yahoo has taken advantage of the law to quietly funnel hundreds of millions of dollars in global profits to island subsidiaries, cutting its worldwide tax bill.

The Yahoo arrangement illustrates that the Netherlands, in the heart of a continent better known for social welfare than corporate welfare, has emerged as one of the most important tax havens for multinational companies. Now, as a deficit-strapped Europe raises retirement ages and taxes on the working class, the Netherlands’ role as a $13 trillion relay station on the global tax-avoiding network is prompting a backlash.

The Dutch Parliament is scheduled to debate the fairness of its tax system today. Lawmakers from several parties, including members of the country’s governing coalition, say they want to remove a stain on the nation’s reputation.

“We should not be a tax haven,” said Ed Groot, a parliament member from the Labour Party, which along with the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy took power in November. Both ruling parties are “fed up with these so called PO Box companies,” he said. “If they go somewhere else we are not sorry at all because they spoil the name of Holland. Otherwise you can wait for retaliation measures and this we don’t want ".

Last month, the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, declared a war on tax avoidance and evasion, which it said costs the EU 1 trillion euros a year. The commission advised member states -- including the Netherlands -- to create tax-haven blacklists and adopt anti-abuse rules.

It also recommended reforms that could undermine the lure of the Netherlands, and hurt a spinoff industry that has mushroomed in and around Amsterdam to abet tax avoidance.

Attracted by the Netherlands’ lenient policies and extensive network of tax treaties, companies such as Yahoo, Google Inc. (GOOG), Merck & Co. and Dell Inc. have moved profits through the country. Using techniques with nicknames such as the “Dutch Sandwich,” multinational companies routed 10.2 trillion euros in 2010 through 14,300 Dutch “special financial units,” according to the Dutch Central Bank. Such units often only exist on paper, as is allowed by law.

Profit shifting into tax havens by corporations costs the U.S. $90 billion a year, according to Kimberly Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. The U.S. faces a projected budget deficit of almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2013.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- which sets standards for how multinational companies allocate taxable income around the world -- is also tackling the issue. It’s discussing a proposal that could make it harder for companies to move profits through the Netherlands into island tax havens.

Read more: Yahoo, Dell Swell Netherlands’ $13 Trillion Tax Haven - Bloomberg

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft do not comply with EU privacy directives - by Gaspard Sebag

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft do not comply with the European Union’s Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data. This is the essence of a letter sent by the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, on 26 May, to the three major search engine operators. WP29 demands that these companies reduce to six months the period during which they store data before they are made anonymous. Furthermore, the working party claims the methods used do not guarantee adequate anonymisation (see box). WP29 also calls for an independent audit of the three internet giants.

Copies of the three letters were also sent to Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice, fundamental rights and citizenship commissioner, and to the US Federal Trade Commission.

This is not the first time Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have been asked to answer for their data protection policies. In March 2008, WP29 had issued a detailed opinion about search engines with regard to the EU directive on the topic. The advisory body had, already then, recommended a shortened retention period for personal data. Some improvements in terms of data protection had ensued but they were not deemed enough by the WP29, whence the new letter.

For more: 28/05/2010 Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft do not comply with directive

Businessweek: Tech Beat Something's Fishy About This Yahoo-Google Deal - by Rob Hof

For the complete report from BusinessWeek click on this link

Something's Fishy About This Yahoo-Google Deal - by Rob Hof

We’re supposed to believe that after Yahoo spent years battling Google to little avail, after having multiple chances and much Wall Street encouragement to outsource its search ads to the leader, suddenly Yahoo and Google are now going to be best buddies? After a couple of days of ad tests? Supposedly, they’re even plotting to avoid regulatory problems by limiting the deal to “specific groups of search queries or regions.” If the point for Yahoo is to show how much more money it could make outsourcing search ads to Google, that makes no sense. Even the $1 billion a year that Citigroup thinks an outsourcing deal could add to Yahoo’s cash flow probably wouldn’t sway Yahoo shareholders staring at a $45 billion Microsoft buyout offer, so why would some smaller portion of that sway them any more? Of all the back-and-forth negotiating tactics we’ve seen in this overlong Kabuki dance so far, this one takes the cake. Maybe it will help Yahoo ultimately extract a few more dollars a share from Microsoft, and if so, more power to them. But these moves are getting so transparent that you have to wonder how effective they are. Note EU-Digest: Hope the EU takes a good look at this once it materializes, because it looks somewhat fishy.