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Digital Markets Act: Developments since its proposal  

Following the European Commission’s initial proposal of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in December 2020, its adoption by the European Parliament in March 2022 and the entry into force on November 1, 2022, the DMA will finally apply from May 2, 2023. The DMA contains a list of obligations and prohibitions, subject to fines, that core platform services (CPS) provided by so-called gatekeepers must comply with in their daily operations. CPS should therefore be assessed at an early stage regarding whether or not they fall within the scope of regulation of the DMA.

As is set out in the following, the DMA poses significant business challenges for (potential)
gatekeepers, which should be addressed in a legally sound, comprehensive and systematic manner in order to prevent disruptions to the relevant businesses. Continue Reading Countdown to compliance: The DMA to apply to digital gatekeepers from May 2, 2023  

Open book

On October 16, the Second Circuit ruled that Google’s scanning of millions of books without the copyright holders’ permission, for use in its “Google Books” database, is permissible under the fair use doctrine. Google Books enables members of the public to search for terms within these books and view snippets of machine-readable text containing their search terms.

In 2004, Google entered into agreements with a number of the world’s major research libraries, pursuant to which Google was permitted to scan more than 20 million books submitted by those libraries in order to create an online index. Google’s aim was to enable members of the public to search for terms within the machine-readable text of each scanned book, in order to see if that book contained relevant material.  The Google Books search tool does not display advertising or otherwise cost members of the public money, and searches reveal only snippets of text surrounding the words or phrases searched. Publishers and authors sued Google for injunctive relief, claiming that the search and snippet view features of Google Books undermined the value of their copyrighted works.
Continue Reading Second Circuit Holds That the Google Digital Books Project Is Protected Under the Fair Use Doctrine

In May 2014, we reported on the implications of the landmark decision in Google Spain which recognises the right for individuals to have links about themselves de-listed from search results. In response to the complaints received, the Article 29 Working Party (Art 29 WP) published a report on work being carried out to handle complaints,…

In November, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (Working Party) released guidelines as to how the Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) assembled in the Working Party intend to implement the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the case of Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de…