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The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered an interesting judgment on the freedom of expression of a blogger (see also Egill Einarsson v. Iceland (No. 2), IRIS 2018-9/2 and Savva Terentyev v. Russia, IRIS 2018-9/3). The ECtHR values the statements of the blogger as those of a “public watchdog” and finds that his conviction for defamation violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In 2015 Mr Maksim Sergeyevich Rebechenko published on YouTube a video with the title “Kolkhoz TV on Ukrainian crisis”. In the video he made a series of critical comments about a speech...

In a press release of 7 March 2019, the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) declared that websites must remain accessible for Internet users who refuse to give consent to the placement of tracking cookies. Websites that only grant access to their site after visitors have given consent do not comply with the free consent standard set by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In the Netherlands, cookie placement is regulated under the Dutch Telecommunications Act (Telecommunicatiewet). Under article 11.7a of this Act, consent is required to store or to receive access to information on the...

In a judgement of 22 December 2018, the District Court of Limburg ruled that a Dutch political party, the Socialist Party (SP), had not acted unlawfully by posting on a website called foutevastgoedbazen.nl (wrongrealestatebosses.nl)) and on a Facebook page statements about a real estate company, Metroprop, which owns a large number of properties in Heerlen, a city in the South of the Netherlands, and about its managing director. The website was an initiative of citizens of Heerlen and the political party aimed at protesting against what they call “wrong real estate bosses”, such as the managing...

On 19 March 2019, the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation issued its judgment in the appeal filed by RTI (Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A., one of the main Italian broadcasters) against the landmark Milan Court of Appeals’ decision issued in January 2015 in the RTI v. Yahoo! case. The case arose in 2009 when RTI filed a suit against Yahoo!, provider of the Yahoo! Video service, to have the latter condemned for copyright infringement against RTI, based on the fact that several of RTI’s videos were hosted on the Yahoo! Video platform, uploaded by users without RTI’s consent. The first instance Court...

On 5 March 2019, the Attorney General’s Office published the Government’s response to its call for evidence examining the impact of social media on the administration of justice. The response revealed that although the risk to the legal process has increased with the proliferation of social media in recent years, it nevertheless remains relatively minor and it is still at a level whereby it does not pose a serious threat to the criminal justice system. The call for evidence was launched in September 2017 by the then Attorney General, Jeremy Wright, and closed on 8 December 2017. It asked for examples...