On Tuesday (18 June), the German chancellor and the US president will embrace each other. Eyes will be shining as both sides praise the German-American friendship. After all, this visit from Washington is an election ...

The EU will ban Internet service providers from manipulating and blocking access to certain websites, according to a European Commission official. Speaking with EUobserver on Tuesday (11 June) following an internal ...

A recent European Commission paper remarked that it is "intriguing" that so few people choose to go into information and communication technology (ICT) careers. Not enough young people, it noted, were making the leap ...

European Union regulators have taken their first step to making good on their recent threat to take “repressive action” against Google by summer. Following last month’s final meeting between Google and European ...

Industry lobbyists have downgraded EU countries in their world ranking of top performers on cloud computing, as the Union prepares to overhaul its data protection rules. Japan, Australia and the US are top of the cloud ...

MEPs are set to come under industry pressure from the likes of Facebook and Google over legislation restricting their right to use and sell personal data collected online. The report by German Green deputy, Jan-Philip ...

The EU executive will release a draft directive on cyber security in 2013, in the latest indication that the bloc is moving towards a harmonised online rulebook. The bill is likely to propose the creation of a co- ...

The 40-year-long quest to create a single European patent ended on Tuesday (11 December) when the European Parliament ratified a deal which will come into force in 2014. Speaking in the assembly in Strasbourg, EU single ...

Despite not having begun formal deliberations in committee, the European Parliament is on course to define its position on the EU's new data protection regime by mid-2013, according to data privacy expert Sophie In't ...

Search-engine Google has been ordered to re-write its data collection rules after EU regulators found that they were in breach of EU data protection laws. A letter to Google CEO Larry Page signed by 24 of the EU's 27 ...

Digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes unveiled the EU's long awaited cloud computing strategy on Thursday (27 September), describing it as a "game-changer" for the European economy. The commission says that a €45 ...

Governments and industry should invest €45 billion in cloud computing by 2020 as part of an EU strategy to generate an estimated €900 billion in GDP and an additional 3.8 million jobs by the end of the decade. The bold ...

The European Commission is under pressure to keep to its self-imposed September deadline to publish an EU cloud computing strategy, as new evidence revealed widespread public confusion about it. Figures collected by ...

Cyber crime worth billions of euros is going unreported because companies are failing to admit to security breaches, according to a paper released Tuesday (28 August) by the EU's internet security agency. In "Cyber ...

By popular demand EUobserver is now available in a version optimised for smartphones. When you access content on EUobserver from your phone you will be automatically redirected to a new phone-friendly version of our ...

Alfred Heineken did more than just brew beer. He also thought about things, like the future of Europe and how best to proceed. "I propose a United Europe of 75 states," he wrote in a pamphlet published in the summer of ...

Companies using cloud computing services must "guarantee" compliance with EU data rules, according to the Article 29 Working group, the EU's leading data protection watchdog. In a 27-page legal opinion released this ...

The European Commission is refusing to be drawn on steps made by Internet search-engine Google to avoid an EU fine of up to €3.8 billion for breaching EU competition rules. Google issued a statement on Monday (2 July) ...

The controversial anti-counterfeit treaty Acta is in danger of unraveling, with Dutch and Australian politicians the latest to cast doubt on it, despite a rearguard effort by the EU commission and the creative ...

The EU is set to miss targets for its digital agenda programme, according to a report released this week by the European Commission. Earlier this week (18 June) the commission published its second annual Digital Agenda ...

MEPs in Strasbourg have urged the European Commission to propose harmonised EU measures to combat cybercrime. A non-binding report drafted by Bulgarian centre-left MEP Ivailo Kalfin analysing the extent of online ...

EU competition boss Joaquin Almunia Friday (8 June) confirmed that Google has until early July to put in place changes to its business practices to avoid formal sanctions resulting from an anti-trust investigation into ...

EU cloud computing will lag two years behind the US due to European privacy rules and the eurozone crisis, said a report on the future of cloud computing released on Friday (1 June) by US technology research company ...

The European Commission has given Google “a matter of weeks” to propose a “remedies package” in order to avoid formal legal proceedings and possible fines over allegations that the online search giant is abusing its ...

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tells EUobserver why entrepreneurs do better in America: in the US, you can start your own business in five minutes. In Greece, it can take up to 10 months.

MPs on the UK's House of Commons European Scrutiny committee have demanded that the new EU patent court be based in London in order to mitigate against what it described as "the most damaging effects of a unitary EU- ...

The European Commission has threatened to table a comprehensive set of child internet safety rules if the software industry fails to self-regulate to protect children online. Unveiling its "European strategy for a ...

The EU's first cloud computing project is ready for use, according to a statement on Tuesday (May 1st) by the EU-funded Optimis project. The scheme will make its first cloud software available from 1 June to be ...

EU copyright law does not ban the re-sale of computer programme licences, according to a ruling on Wednesday (25 April) by the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice. The judgement by the EU court follows a dispute ...

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes Tuesday (24 April) reiterated her call for an EU-wide internet security strategy, arguing that EU authorities have not done enough to establish defence mechanisms to prevent ...

While MEPs continue to relish the extent of the European Parliament new powers in making EU laws, officials at the heart of the institution are looking into how the world's biggest transnational assembly is being ...

The MEP charged with scrutiny of the little-loved anti-counterfeit 'Acta' treaty has called for a boycott, raising prospects that parliament will kill it in June or July. David Martin - a British member of the centre- ...

Start Trek fans will know about the Tricorder, a handheld device used by Captain Kirk and company to, among other things, scan the biological state of the living creatures they encountered on their interplanetary voyage ...

Healthcare, strictly speaking, is none of the EU's business. It is a sensitive issue that member states have largely preferred to keep in their own hands. They have allowed the EU to do little more than "support, co- ...

A man from Italy enters a pharmacy in Athens, Greece, to get some medication. Only, he has no prescription. Oh no! Fortunately, he has an e-prescription. A what? An e-prescription, an online prescription saved under his ...

Leading Internet freedom group La Quadrature du Net has reiterated its demands for an EU web neutrality law following last week’s disclosure that European Internet operators regularly use traffic management techniques ...

Early investors in Zenicor, a Swedish medical technology company founded in 2003, are probably congratulating themselves on their foresight. "Over the last three years, we have had an annual growth of more than 50 ...

The 'e' for electronic has become a familiar sight in front of words like mail, book, or commerce, but health has long been spared the token affix of the digital age. Until recently that is. Now e-health has arrived and ...

Doctors, it is said, are not exactly what might be called early adopters of new technologies. It took them almost a generation to get used to the stethoscope after it was invented in the early 19th century. Today, they ...

Online search engine Google is under fire for its new privacy policy, which came into force yesterday (1 March), with the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) saying it breaches EU law. Justice commissioner Viviane ...

The debate on the controversial anti-counterfeit treaty, Acta has moved to the European Parliament, with MEPs set to pose their own questions to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice. At the first meeting of ...

President Obama’s chief Internet advisor has described the administration’s Online Bill of Rights as the most decisive statement on Internet privacy by the US government. Speaking to EUobserver, Commerce Department ...

Five EU countries rank among the world’s top ten for policies that promote cloud computing, according to a study published on Wednesday (22 February) by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an ICT body representing ...