Europe's highest court on Tuesday struck down an international agreement that had made it easy for companies to move people's digital data between the European Union (EU) and the United States.
The ruling, by the European Court of Justice, could make it more difficult for global technology giants -including the likes of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook -to collect and mine online information from their millions of users in the 28-member EU. The court declared the data-transfer agreement, which is known as Safe Harbor, immediately invalid.
Although most multinational firms and their lawyers have hammered out side agreements with the EU that should allow them to continue moving data across borders for now, the court's ruling could hold significant implications down the road.It will empower data-privacy regulators in each of the bloc's nations to evaluate how data is moved from their countries to the US, and it will permit national authorities to impose tougher restrictions on data transfers.
Europe's privacy watchdogs remain divided over how to police American tech companies. While France and Germany have sought more aggressive protections, Britain and Ireland have been supportive.
An agreement that some campaigners have cal led the “biggest global threat to the internet“ has been signed, potentially bringing huge new restrictions on what people can do with their computers.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership -a trade agreement between several Pacific Rim countries including Japan and US -is the conclusion of five years of negotiations, and will cover 40% of the world's economy . Its claimed purpose is to create a unified economic bloc so that companies and businesses can trade more easily -but it also puts many of the central principles of the internet in doubt, according to campaigners.
One particularly controversial part of the provisions make it a crime to reveal corporate wrongdoing “through a computer system“. Experts have pointed out that the wording is very vague, and could lead to whistleblowers being penalised for sharing important information, and lead to journalists stopping reporting on them. Others require that online content providers -such as YouTube and Facebook -must take down content if they receive just one complaint, as they are in the US. That will be harmful for startups looking to build such businesses since they'll be required to have the resources to respond to every complaint, experts have pointed out.
In 2013, when the partnership was still being discussed, the Electronic Freedom Foundation called TPP “one of the worst global threats to the internet“. The changes could also lead to huge new rules about surveillance.
The pact has been made in secret and will not be fully published publicly for years.Tech experts wrote to the US Congress in May to demand more transparency about the agreement.
