On Tuesday 14 November the Hogan Lovells DSM Taskforce (our dedicated pan-EU team of lawyers tracking the Commission’s DSM strategy) had its annual live meeting in Brussels to discuss the progress of the implementation of the DSM strategy and key forthcoming developments. The team held a webinar on the status of the strategy and what to expect in 2018 in the areas of platforms, e-commerce, the draft AVMS Directive, the copyright reforms, privacy and telecoms.…

Data brokers are organisations that obtain data from a variety of sources and then sell or license it to third parties. Many trade in personal data, which is purchased by their customers for several purposes, most commonly to support marketing campaigns. In 2012, data brokers’ trade in personal data was reported to have generated over $150 billion in revenue. The UK data protection regulator (the “ICO”) has for some time been actively enforcing against organisations…

The European Commission has released its proposal for a new EU e-Privacy Regulation that will replace the existing e-Privacy Directive.  The high level aim of the draft e-Privacy Regulation is to harmonise the specific privacy framework relating to electronic communications within the EU and ensure consistency with the GDPR. Compared to the existing Directive, the draft e-Privacy Regulation has broader territorial reach and applies generally to the provision of electronic communications services to end users…