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On 27 December 2016, the Italian Supreme Court published a decision through which it confirmed the conviction of the owner of the website www.agenziacalcio.it for defamation. The defamatory comment had first been posted by a user of the same website. The latter, in fact, posted a defamatory comment concerning “C.T.”, the person targeted by the statement, below an article on the website.  At the time, C.T. was President of the National Youth League of the Italian Football Association (“FIGC”) and he is currently serving as President of the FIGC. In order to corroborate his statement, the user sent...

In two rulings issued on 10 January 2017 (case nos. VI ZR 561/15 and VI ZR 562/15), the Federal Supreme Court (BGH) held that the comedians on ZDF’s satirical programme “Die Anstalt” could continue to claim that two journalists working for the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” are linked to organisations that deal with issues relating to security policy. It therefore rejected the libel actions brought by the journalists concerned. On 29 April 2014, public service broadcaster ZDF transmitted the satirical programme “Die Anstalt”, in which two comedians discussed two “Die Zeit” journalists’ independence...

On 10 January 2017, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Regulation concerning the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications (e-Privacy Regulation). The proposed Regulation is a result of the review of the e-Privacy Directive (2002/58/EC) (see IRIS 2002-7/10) that was announced in the European Commission’s Digital Single Market Strategy (see IRIS 2015-6:1/3). The proposed Regulation updates the e-Privacy Directive to align it with technological developments and with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted in May 2016. It...

On 25 January 2017 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a Resolution and Recommendation on “Ending cyberdiscrimination and online hate”. The Assembly, having regard to “Resolution 2069 (2015) on recognising and preventing neo-racism”, urges member states to take further action for the protection of the online environment from unlawful speech. Member states are called upon to ratify the Convention on Cybercrime (ETS No. 185) and to ensure that national legislation covers all forms of online incitement. The member states should provide assistance to law enforcement agencies...

LinkedIn, the major global professional social network, has been banned in Russia after a Moscow City Court upheld an earlier court decision taken upon a claim by Roskomnadzor, the governmental supervisory authority in media, communications and personal data traffic (see IRIS 2012-8/36). LinkedIn stood accused of failing to comply with a 2014 federal law requiring Internet companies that process Russian citizens’ personal information to store their user data on servers located in Russia (see IRIS 2014-8/35). Reportedly Linkedin had more than 6,000,000 users in Russia. The court of first instance...