This book provides an overview of recent and future legal developments concerning the digital era, to examine the extent to which law has or will further evolve in order to adapt to its new digitalized context. More specifically it focuses on some of the most important legal issues found in areas directly connected with the Internet, such as intellectual property, data protection, consumer law, criminal law and cybercrime, media law and, lastly, the enforcement and application of law. By adopting this horizontal approach, it highlights – on the basis of analysis and commentary of recent and future EU legislation as well as of the latest CJEU and ECtHR case law – the numerous challenges faced by law in this new digital era. This book is of great interest to academics, students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers specializing in Internet law, data protection, intellectual property, consumer law, media law and cybercrime as well as to judges dealing with the application and enforcement of Internet law in practice.
Global finance is in the middle of a radical transformation fueled by innovative financial technologies. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the digitization of retail financial services in Europe. Institutional interest and digital asset markets are also growing blurring the boundaries between the token economy and traditional finance. Blockchain, AI, quantum computing and decentralised finance (DeFI) are setting the stage for a global battle of business models and philosophies. The post-Brexit EU cannot afford to ignore the promise of digital finance. But the Union is struggling to keep pace with global innovation hubs, particularly when it comes to experimenting with new digital forms of capital raising. Calibrating the EU digital finance strategy is a balancing act that requires a deep understanding of the factors driving the transformation, be they legal, cultural, political or economic, as well as their many implications. The same FinTech inventions that use AI, machine learning and big data to facilitate access to credit may also establish invisible barriers that further social, racial and religious exclusion. The way digital finance actors source, use, and record information presents countless consumer protection concerns. The EU’s strategic response has been years in the making and, finally, in September 2020 the Commission released a Digital Finance Package. This special issue collects contributions from leading scholars who scrutinize the challenges digital finance presents for the EU internal market and financial market regulation from multiple public policy perspectives. Author contributions adopt a critical yet constructive and solutions-oriented approach. They aim to provide policy-relevant research and ideas shedding light on the complexities of the digital finance promise. They also offer solid proposals for reform of EU financial services law.
EU regulatory initiatives concerning technology-related topics have spiked over the past few years. On the basis of its Priorities Programme, which is focused on making Europe ‘Fit for the Digital Age’, the European Commission has been busily releasing new texts aimed at regulating a number of technology topics, including data uses, online platforms, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. This book identifies three phenomena which are common to all EU digital technologies-relevant regulatory initiatives: act-ification, GDPR mimesis, and regulatory brutality. These three phenomena serve as indicators or early signs of a new European technology law-making paradigm that now seems ready to emerge. They divulge new-found confidence on the part of the EU digital technologies legislator, who has now asserted for itself the right to form policy options and create new rules in the field for all of Europe. Bringing together an analysis of the regulatory initiatives for the management of technology topics in the EU for the first time, this book will be of interest to academics, policymakers, and practitioners, sparking academic and policymaking interest and discussion.
This open access book aims to set an agenda for research and action in the field of Digital Humanism through short essays written by selected thinkers from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, philosophy, education, law, economics, history, anthropology, political science, and sociology. This initiative emerged from the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism and the associated lecture series. Digital Humanism deals with the complex relationships between people and machines in digital times. It acknowledges the potential of information technology. At the same time, it points to societal threats such as privacy violations and ethical concerns around artificial intelligence, automation and loss of jobs, ongoing monopolization on the Web, and sovereignty. Digital Humanism aims to address these topics with a sense of urgency but with a constructive mindset. The book argues for a Digital Humanism that analyses and, most importantly, influences the complex interplay of technology and humankind toward a better society and life while fully respecting universal human rights. It is a call to shaping technologies in accordance with human values and needs.
With the ongoing evolution of the digital society challenging the boundaries of the law, new questions are arising – and new answers being given – even now, almost three decades on from the digital revolution. Written by a panel of legal specialists and edited by experts on EU Internet law, this book provides an overview of the most recent developments affecting the European Internet legal framework, specifically focusing on four current debates. Firstly, it discusses the changes in online copyright law, especially after the enactment of the new directive on the single digital market. Secondly, it analyzes the increasing significance of artificial intelligence in our daily life. The book then addresses emerging issues in EU digital law, exploring out of the box approaches in Internet law. It also presents the last cyber-criminality law trends (offenses, international instrument, behaviors), and discusses the evolution of personal data protection. Lastly, it evaluates the degree of consumer and corporate protection in the digital environment, demonstrating that now, more than ever, EU Internet law is based on a combination of copyright, civil, administrative, criminal, commercial and banking laws.
Europe's Digital Revolution assesses the impact of digital broadcasting on regulatory practices in Europe. The current roles and responsibilities of nation states and the EU will have to respond to rapid technological and market developments. Levy considers how these responsibilities are likely to be divided in the future, and which are the emerging issues and problems.
This open access book provides researchers and professionals with a foundational understanding of online privacy as well as insight into the socio-technical privacy issues that are most pertinent to modern information systems, covering several modern topics (e.g., privacy in social media, IoT) and underexplored areas (e.g., privacy accessibility, privacy for vulnerable populations, cross-cultural privacy). The book is structured in four parts, which follow after an introduction to privacy on both a technical and social level: Privacy Theory and Methods covers a range of theoretical lenses through which one can view the concept of privacy. The chapters in this part relate to modern privacy phenomena, thus emphasizing its relevance to our digital, networked lives. Next, Domains covers a number of areas in which privacy concerns and implications are particularly salient, including among others social media, healthcare, smart cities, wearable IT, and trackers. The Audiences section then highlights audiences that have traditionally been ignored when creating privacy-preserving experiences: people from other (non-Western) cultures, people with accessibility needs, adolescents, and people who are underrepresented in terms of their race, class, gender or sexual identity, religion or some combination. Finally, the chapters in Moving Forward outline approaches to privacy that move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions, explore ethical considerations, and describe the regulatory landscape that governs privacy through laws and policies. Perhaps even more so than the other chapters in this book, these chapters are forward-looking by using current personalized, ethical and legal approaches as a starting point for re-conceptualizations of privacy to serve the modern technological landscape. The book's primary goal is to inform IT students, researchers, and professionals about both the fundamentals of online privacy and the issues that are most pertinent to modern information systems. Lecturers or teachers can assign (parts of) the book for a “professional issues” course. IT professionals may select chapters covering domains and audiences relevant to their field of work, as well as the Moving Forward chapters that cover ethical and legal aspects. Academics who are interested in studying privacy or privacy-related topics will find a broad introduction in both technical and social aspects.
For many observers, the European Union is mired in a deep crisis. Between sluggish growth; political turmoil following a decade of austerity politics; Brexit; and the rise of Asian influence, the EU is seen as a declining power on the world stage. Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the opposite in her important new book The Brussels Effect: the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech. And in contrast to how superpowers wield their global influence, the Brussels Effect - a phrase first coined by Bradford in 2012- absolves the EU from playing a direct role in imposing standards, as market forces alone are often sufficient as multinational companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their global operations. The Brussels Effect shows how the EU has acquired such power, why multinational companies use EU standards as global standards, and why the EU's role as the world's regulator is likely to outlive its gradual economic decline, extending the EU's influence long into the future.
