The European Commission says it "stood firm" in the face of pressure from the US when drafting its overhaul of the bloc's data protection regime. Mina Andreeva, spokesperson for EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding, ...

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 ...

The European Commission will table 'net neutrality' rules to prevent internet providers blocking access to rival sites within weeks, the bloc's digital agenda chief has said. Speaking at an event on the digital economy ...

Criminals are using bitcoins and other unregulated digital currencies as a payment method of choice when blackmailing companies following a data breach. Belgian-based Buy Way Personal Finance told this website on ...

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 ...

Large EU-based companies will have to disclose major cyber-attacks to designated national authorities, under new legislative rules proposed by the European Commission on Thursday (7 February). “Under our proposal, ...

An obscure section in a US law is said to entitle authorities to access, without a warrant, data stored by any EU citizen on clouds run by American companies. Although highly controversial for its indirect effects on ...

Estonia's President told data protection experts in Brussels on Wednesday (23 January) that the state is the only "fundamental guarantor of a citizen's digital life." Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who also chairs a steering ...

Russian Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab says unknown hackers have been stealing EU and Nato-encrypted files. The operation - dubbed "Red October" - claimed victims in embassies, government and military institutions ...

Law enforcement authorities in Europe and the US are joining forces to help stop online child abuse. A recent joint investigation by authorities on both sides of the Atlantic led to the arrest of some 245 people. "We ...

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's new cybercrime centre is to be officially launched at the end of the week, but privacy specialists say the Union is failing to protect personal data. The Danish chief of the new body, Troels Oerting, told ...

EU citizens are losing some €1.5 billion every year as criminals siphon off their money through the fraudulent use of debit and credit cards. A new report released on Monday (7 December) by the EU police agency Europol ...

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- ...

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 ...

EU data protection reforms could "cripple" international law enforcement said the head of international law of the US department of justice at a European Parliament hearing on Wednesday (10 October). The deputy ...

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 ...

Europe's new online crime centre faces an almost insurmountable task, its incoming chief Troels Oerting has said. "There is no absolute security, it is a myth," Oerting, who is from January to run the European Cybecrime ...

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 ...

Search-engine Google is at the centre of an embarrassing data privacy row after French and British regulators demanded access to all Wi-Fi data collected for its Street View site. The move came when Google's legal ...

Hackers last summer raided the emails of EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy and 10 other senior officials. The breach was exposed last week by a team of US academics and cyber security firms which has been tracking a ...

Search-engine Google is set to avoid fines worth up to $4 billion after the European Commission's competition boss Joaquin Almunia publicly acknowledged that a deal is close. Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday ...

Plans for tighter EU rules on Internet service providers have been pushed back to 2013 after the European Commission this week launched a public consultation lasting until mid-October. The EU executive is seeking ...

Music is everywhere, and the digital age has only increased its presence. Today, (11 July) I am proposing a modernised system of collective rights management that will use the single market – the EU's most powerful ...

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 little-loved anti-counterfeit treaty, Acta, has collapsed after MEPs in the European Parliament vetoed it by an overwhelming majority. After comfortably rejecting a request by the centre-right EPP group to postpone ...

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) ...

Cyber attacks have siphoned off at least €60 million from personal and business accounts in 60 banks located in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Security firms Guardian Analytics and McAfee published the ...

MEPs on the European Parliament's international trade committee on Thursday (21 June) voted to reject the controversial anti-counterfeit treaty Acta. With a majority of 19 to 12 endorsing the recommendation to reject ...

EU data protection chief Peter Hustinx has warned governments not to water down new rules on data protection by excluding police and law authorities from the scope saying that such steps would be "inappropriate." The EU ...

The future of controversial anti-counterfeit treaty Acta remains uncertain as MEPs on the European Parliament’s trade committee weigh up whether to approve or reject the deal. Four European Parliament standing ...

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 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 prospects of the EU ratifying the controversial anti-counterfeit treaty, Acta have been dealt another blow after MEPs on three European Parliament committees voted to reject the deal. MEPs on the civil liberties, ...

The number of cyber attacks targeting online banking in the EU in the past year has increased dramatically compared to 2010, Microsoft said on Thursday (31 May). Tim Rains, director of Microsoft's "trustworthy" ...

Digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes is to draft legislation on 'net neutrality' following data that between 20 and 50 percent of European Internet providers use software to block online access. In a press statement ...

Swedish Pirate party MEP Christian Engstrom has little interest in economics or foreign affairs. The former computer engineer is concentrating his energy on stopping the EU parliament from adopting the Acta treaty on ...

Software pirates are most likely to be young men according to a survey carried out by software industry lobby group the Business Software Alliance (BSA). The BSA study of nearly 15,000 computer users, published on ...

The European Commission will propose binding EU legislation before the end of the year to help member states plug huge gaps in their cyber-security defences. Speaking at a cyber-security debate organised by the Security ...

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes has admitted defeat on the controversial anti-counterfeit treaty Acta, with her official spokesman telling reporters that the treaty's demise is a "political reality". ...

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 ...

The EU wants to work closer with the United States' department of Homeland Security and the FBI to help plug gaps on protection against cyber crime - a sector worth €388 billion a year in illegal revenue worldwide. "To ...

Guy Verhofstadt became the latest leading figure to oppose the anti-counterfeit treaty Acta when his Liberal group announced that they could not approve the deal without significant re-negotiation. At a press conference ...

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 ...