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On 19 July 2016, the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Ministero dell’Economia e delle Finanze) issued a decree to identify the “specialised media” to which the general prohibition of gaming advertising on television and radio broadcasts between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. does not apply. The Decree has been published in the Official Journal on 8 August 2016. Restrictions on gaming advertising were introduced by Legislative Decree no. 158 of 13 September 2012 (“Decreto Balduzzi”). In addition, Section 1, paragraph 939 of Law no. 208 of 28 December 2015 sets forth the prohibition on “generalist radio and...

The legality and acceptability of some controversial practices by journalists was at the heart of a recent case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The case concerns the conviction of three journalists in Italy who intercepted radio communications between police officers (carabinieri) in order to arrive quickly at crime scenes and report on them for their local online newspaper. Stressing the notion of responsible journalism and noting that the decisions of the domestic courts had been duly reasoned and had focused primarily on the need to protect national security and prevent crime...

On 13 July 2016, the Italian Data Protection Authority issued a decision ruling that the processing of users’ personal data by the Italian satellite pay-TV operator Sky Italia, aimed at providing targeted advertising to some of its subscribers (Adsmart project), is in line with the Italian Data Protection Code (legislative decree No. 196 of 30 June 2003). Targeted advertising is a new advertising technique that enables the broadcaster to replace the advertising spots included in the linear feed with different, targeted advertising spots that are stored in the user’s decoder box. Thus, broadcasters...

Over recent years, the widespread deployment of broadband access services from both fixed line and mobile network brought the development of a new set of services and advanced equipment. This increased users’ demand for Internet access and stimulated investments in network capacity, as well as the development of new services and apps. In this regard, and in line with the current debate at EU level (see IRIS 2015-10/4), on 28 June 2016 the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (Italian Communications Authority - AGCOM) published the findings of the survey concerning the development of digital...

On 27 July 2016 the Tribunal of Milan partially rejected the request for interim measures filed by Mediaset Premium S.p.A. (Mediaset), the pay-TV arm of the Mediaset group, against the TLC companies Telecom Italia S.p.a., Vodafone Omnitel n.v., Fastweb S.p.a., Tiscali Italia S.p.a., H3G Italia S.p.a. and Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.a. (TLC Operators). The dispute arose from the illegal live streaming by the online portal Calcion, available at the domain name “calcion.at”, of several clips related to football games the exclusive rights of which were owned by Mediaset. In the past, Calcion’s previous...