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New consumer protection rules for mobile apps and digital content purchases
Good news for purchasers of apps and other digital content, such as films, music and games. Hidden in amongst the detail of last week’s Queen’s Speech, the Government announced plans to introduce new laws to protect consumers that purchase mobile apps and digital content such as films, m...Latest Meltwater copyright decision gives comfort to internet users
Last month, the Supreme Court handed down its latest judgement in the long-running Meltwater case. This latest appeal considered whether merely viewing content on the internet could infringe copyright. Whilst the Supreme Court has referred the matter to the European Court of Justics for clarificatio...New rules on payment surcharges in consumer contracts
At the end of last year, the Government implemented Article 19 of the Consumer Rights Directive through the new Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012. These regulations aim to address ‘above-cost’ payment surcharges made by traders. Payment surcharges (where a trader impo...European Parliament approves new consumer dispute resolution procedures
The European Parliament recently confirmed its adoption of the European Commission’s Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR). The ODR is intended to establish an EU-wide online platform to quickly and efficiently handle consumer disputes arising from online tra...Will the proposed EU directive on web accessibility lead to confusion and hinder innovation?
Following on from my blogpost last month on the European Commission’s draft directive on the accessibility of public sector websites, I have an article in the forthcoming edition of C&L Magazine, the journal for the Society of Computers and the Law. Under the proposed directive, new EU-wid...European Commission proposes new laws on web accessibility of public sector websites
As I mentioned on Twitter earlier this week, the European Commission has proposed a new directive governing the accessibility of websites operated by organisations in the public sector. If passed, the directive would set out requirements in relation to how many public sector bodies ensure that their...Hurricane Sandy highlights the importance of effective IT business continuity planning
We’ve blogged on several occasions about the importance of business continuty and disaster recovery plans – most notably about the impact on global supply chains following the giant ash cloud caused by the erruption of Eyjafjallajoekull in 2010. I was surprised at the impact that Hurrica...OFT finds that websites are continuing to fall short on consumer protection laws
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has recently published the results of its annual survey of over 150 websites to check whether or not they complied with consumer protection law. The survey, which included the 100 top online retailers and most popular clothing sites, had some interesting results. Ke...CNIL v Google – one directive and 27 data protection laws
Today’s announcement from the French data protection regulator, CNIL, highlights one of the problems with the current Euroopean data protection regime for businesses that operate across the EU. One data protection directive; 27 data protection laws Whilst European data protection laws are deri...ICO investigation highlights importance of information security to brand reputation
The story earlier this week about the Information Commissioner’s (ICO) investigation into concerns over the security of user passwords for the tesco.com website is a timely reminder that information security is an evolving area, and one that organisations need to keep under constant review. Th...