Policy Observatory
Following the introduction of new worldwide terms of use by Facebook, a number of European privacy commissions started investigations. Facebook did not accept that it was bound by the national privacy legislation of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany and it rejected their competence.
On 13 May the Belgian Privacy Commission adopted a first recommendation on Facebook. The document establishes that the Belgian Privacy Commission is competent and that Facebook disregards European and Belgian privacy legislation in several ways.
The Brussels Court of Appeal held that the word ‘ius’ (a Latin for ‘law’) is descriptive for legal services and cannot be registered as a trade mark in the case regarding Mr De Smet’s application at the Benelux Office of Intellectual Property (BOIP) for the word ‘ius’ to be registered as a Benelux word mark in class 35 (advertising services) and 42 (scientific and technological services).
Following two actions for annulment brought independently, the Belgian Constitutional Court ruled yesterday against the mass collection of communications metadata. This ruling falls in line with a recent ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) invalidating the directive behind Belgian law.
Belgium's national privacy watchdog is taking US internet company Facebook to court, arguing that the way the social network website tracks the behaviour of both members and non-members is illegal under Belgian and European law.
The Belgian Privacy Commission (BPC) brought a lawsuit against Facebook after accusing it of not complying with Belgian and European privacy law. In a report and an opinion the BPC detailed Facebook’s alleged breaches, including the tracking of non-users and logged-out Facebook users for advertising purposes.
The BPC is threatening Facebook with fine of €250,000 ($280,213) a day for failing to respond to its demands.
The Parliament of the Belgian German-speaking community voted a resolution on Tuesday asking for the suspension of TTIP negotiations. Regional MPs said the EU-US free-trade agreement talks lack transparency and threaten European standards and democratic process.