blogg för Edvinas Pauza

Data Privacy & Cookies

Edvinas Pauza — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:56:59 +0000

Språk Svenska

The ‘Right to be forgotten’ online is extremely important for a society. As it allows for a procedure to take down information that can be incriminating or have other unforeseen negative consequences, especially in the long-term future. This is rather controversial, as it can be misused to censor freedom of speech. However, ‘right to be forgotten’ should be ensured for personal reasons, and it can work without undermining human rights. The Internet does not forget, content posted online can be accessed globally by 8 billion people, and subsequent generations of offspring from those 8 billion people. It gets worse, then other people can easily post information about you, or even blackmail a person. Blackmailing incidents have recently increased, as many young girls find themselves victims of blackmail & harassment over pictures that often their ex-boyfriend threatened to release. Procedure to allow take-down of personal content should be available, but only after careful study and consideration of the content, to prohibit censoring freedom of speech. This would also go some way in helping situation of child safety online, as the procedure would allow a legal way to take down child pornographic content. However, education of young people from primary school should be prioritised. I listened to my family then was told not to take sweets from strangers, not to send naked pictures of oneself to strangers, should be the same. And, if you do manage to get in this sort of a mess, data protection authorities should be able to differentiate naked pictures of you and a political statement against authoritarian government.

Consent to cookies is a step in the right direction to making sure Internet users are aware that their actions online are being followed and stored. Cookies are non-monetary payment for the Internet services that people enjoy mostly for free. Advertising is already paying for people’s use of music, videos on such channels as youtube. Facebook and googles’ multi-billion dollar business models are build on main idea that profit and company value will come from the advertising revenue. The Internet allows for a possibility to target individual users, thus the chances of offering your product to the person who actually needs it, greatly increase with the use of cookies on the net. However, there are many controversial issues surrounding this, especially than race and religion is introduced into the cookie dough formula. But, few can object to getting the right solution to their problem, when one actually requires it.

The day of advertising on TV 1.0, for example baby pampers, to people that don’t have children and don’t require pampers was part of the 20th century. Internet allows advertising that is tailored to each individual person, even if the media content is the same. There are issues that regulators require to deal with, especially such cases like the rumour I heard that apparently those using apple macbooks can get quoted higher prices online, in my opinion this is an awful price discrimination and should be prohibited.

There are talks & even projects to replace cookies, but for now we have to deal with them. Even the name given to something that collects information about the Internet user is interesting, its the ‘cookies’ that you get in return, instead of charging money to browse the internet site. ‘Cookies’ are often very helpful for remembering your previous preferences, thus saving you a lot of time. It allows this 21st century unique product, instead of generalised media, reduced to the lowest common denominator to appeal to the masses. However, once we enter into the realm of zombie cookies, it starts to get objectionable. Because once I click delete cookies on my Internet browser, I expect it to be deleted. But zombie cookies just renew themselves and keep adding information about you, to already long list of information. On such preferences as food, hobbies and all kinds of psychological life-choices that come to your head to browse on the Internet. US already had a lawsuit regarding such objects, while EU still has to encounter its cookie zombie...

With #ACTA defeat, #excitement doesn't #STOP

Edvinas Pauza — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 09:55:54 +0000

Språk Svenska

The 4th of July is usually known as American Independence Day, but in 2012 it’s been overshadowed by events in Europe. First it was rejection of Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty Agreement in the European Parliament at around 1PM. Which was rejected by 478 MEPs, while 165 MEPs absteined from the vote and only 39 MEPs voted for it. As soon as we were able to process the votes, I looked at computer screen, and what do I see..., a discovery of Higgs Boson!

Higgs Boson... one might say, “but what that has to do with European Union politics and Amelia’s work”. Well, Higgs Boson was found by CERN, which stands for European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Amelia is a full member of ITRE, an Industry, Research and Energy committee. Finding Higgs, has long-term implications for Europe’s and rest of the world’s scientific and research community. At the moment Higgs Boson is considered to be around the mass of 126.3 with variance of +/- 0.6 GeV and significance of 4.9Q.

You can watch CERN announcement of Higgs Boson discovery HERE
Also CERN blog in further detail HERE

Internet Governance

Edvinas Pauza — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:21:02 +0000

Språk Svenska

Last Tuesday, I attended an event at the European Parliament on the Internet Governance. It’s one in a series of events discussing the future of the Internet from the perspective of government. Governance of the Internet is usually divided into two parts, a technological part, from a perspective of an engineer, and a regulatory view taken from the perspective of government. Number of states would like nothing more than to destroy the decentralised architecture of the Internet, which makes it such a unique and powerful tool to use. Can one really trust China, Russia, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan to govern the Internet. It send shivers down my spine, imaging elderly politicians from a country that doesn't care the slightest about utilising the Internet’s potential, but with only one interest to censor freedom of speech under a closed door meeting. This is not a nightmare scenario but a reality which was proposed on 12th of September 2011 in United Nations HQ

India has also come up with the plans of further governmental control over Internet by proposing Committee for Internet-Related Policies within the structure of United Nations. However the only problem with it is that United Nations is slightly tipped to the advantage of quantity of members, rather than the quality of the argument.

The beauty and complexity of the Internet structure is that it allows much more democratic participation than just our so called representatives, from each world state. Many national Pirate Parties use the collaborative deliberation software Liquid Feedback that utilises advantages of technology to improve decision making in a very democratic manner. This reflects Neelie Kroes', Vice-President for Digital Agenda, call for all interest ecosystem to participate in the debate, not only government officials. The oft-quoted definition of the Internet Governance is as follows : “Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution of the Internet”. The multi-stakeholder approach is based on the idea that those who will be affected by decisions have a right to be involved in the making of them.

One of the main current bodies for the Internet Governance is as the name suggests the Internet Governance Forum (IGP), you can follow their youtube channel. It’s useful to keep an eye on the ball, especially in terms of the next IGP world conference which is on the International Communications (WCIT-12) convened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 4-12 December 2012. It will be important to follow if we get any surprise Christmas presents from policy makers afterwards. The topic is so sensitive and controversial that even both parties in US congress managed to agree that Internet Governance should not be left to statesman bravado.

However, Internet Governance is required due to crime that has emerged on the cyberspace in areas such as user privacy, cybersecurity, data protection, and child abuse content. These issues have catapulted Internet to the top of the agenda in many international institutions, such as the International Telecommunications Union, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, the Organisation for Economic Development and cooperation, the Council of Europe, the Organisation of American States, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, and even the G8.

The cyberspace capabilities have become a soft-power tool for advanced foreign policy. Soft-power in International Relations implies the use of non-military capabilities in influencing foreign states. The freedom of communication is a threat to autocratic governments, Europe needs to look no further than Belarus, Syria or even Russia to see the huge potential that freedom in Internet communication has. That's why Amelia is a rapporteur for a digital freedom strategy in EU foreign policy, on behalf of the International Trade committee.

Chinese government knows the power of free Internet better then anyone else, that's why they have submitted ideas to split up DNS into different eco-systems, which goes in the completely opposite direction to net-neutrality.

Deciding how to govern the Internet with a multi-stakeholder ecosystem is not an easy task with no clear solution. But we have to go step by step towards our net-neutrality vision, stepping very cautiously as technology develops faster than governments can legislate, and the last thing Europe can risk is ruining the next EU blue-chip internet company and its future business-models with over-regulation.

Opte project cc by-nc-sa

The European Writer´s Council 2012 Authors´ Rights Conference

Edvinas Pauza — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:43:03 +0000

Språk Svenska

On 4th of June, European Parliament hosted European Writers´ Council 2012 Authors´ Rights Conference on ´Striking the Right Balance between access, fair remuneration and authors´ rights´

MEP Marielle Gallo provided a welcoming and tour d´horizon. Apart from her political life as an MEP she's also an author who feels strongly about IP protection, as well as staunch pro-ACTA supporter. She was a rapporteur on ACTA opinion in JURI committee (Legal Affairs), which to all amusement, requested for her name to be deleted from the report straight after rejection. During the welcoming speech she mentioned that it was a "difficult moment".

As a representative of Amelia's office, exile6e, at the conference, I was pretty much stepping into the dragons dens, as most of the participants were from different authors associations, who enthusiastically clapped for further IP protection. However I tried to keep an open mind and take a balanced, fair view of the whole debate, but without sacrificing development of the Internet. This view could also be found in some of the comments that participants made, such as Mrs Gallo comments that "solutions are required to find respect for balanced IP rights". She highlighted that 6% of european labour is employed in creative industry, where authors are highly dependent on the intellectual property rights for their income.

Conference participants raised questions about the legal status of e-books, if they should be considered as a service or a product. MEP Cecilia Wikstrom highlighted some positive aspects of Internet for creative authors. Among number of points mentioned where that "Internet allows global reach, which maximises the possible demand". She also stressed her belief that "demand for quality creative work will always exist", as well as standing up for open access to documents. However she did not accept the reasoning for copyright to be fundamentally reformed, but hoped for authors remuneration to be included in future information society directive.

MEP Wikstrom was succeeded by Nick Yapp, writer, European Writers´ Council Board Member, and member of the Writers´ Guild of Great Britain (United Kingdom), he highlighted that current publishing business model is lagging behind the development of new technologies, and publishing industry required to find new models for remunerating authors, especially young and first time writers. Because its usually hardest for upcoming artist to break into the industry, especially that consumers will not be willing to pay for unheard authors work. Internet might be a globalising tool for the top authors, which helps them to become global celebrities, but increased competition for all other others makes it difficult.

The next speaker was Mathias Lair Laudet, a poet, critic, as well as Secretary-General of the Union des Ecrivains (France), he mentioned that digital publications should come under different legislation to physical works. His fellow panelist Jean Claude Bologne, a critic, scholar and a President of Societe des Gens de Lettres (France), encouraged further progress on orphan works at national and European level.

Followed by MEP Helga Trupel, who raised the possibility of a levy on cloud computing to remunerate authors. While Vanda Guerra, Director of Portuguese Society of Authors, highlighted important role of SME (small medium enterprise) entrepreneurialism in helping creators, by relieving the burden of logistics and bureaucratic administration in distribution of works.

Maureen Duffy, novelist, Honorary President of the Authors´ Licensing and Collecting Society (United Kingdom), encouraged authors to take central role in management of the content. She also agreed with Vanda Guerra call for SME´s to play a bigger role in distribution of works, as she said "there would be more authors writing rather than chasing micro-payments". On open academic journals and educational material she didn't appear to be very enthusiastic. By suggesting that "free for all is unlikely to provide quality material, but propaganda filled educational material".

One of the guest to conference from reuter news, highlighted growing dangers to the rights of authors. Apparently the right to form trade unions is under threat; examples provided wereNetherlands,IrelandandSpain. The last panellist of the conference were Thorbjorn Ostrom, European Writers´ Council Board Member, Legal Counsel (L.L.M), the Swedish Writers´ Union (Sweden) and Anna Dunnebier, writer, European Writers´ Council Board Member and Vice President of the German Writers´ Union (Germany) who in subsequent order described the history of Pirate parties in their home country, as well as providing explicit quotes from members of Pirate party on authors copyrights.

Annual Conference of Green press officers and webmasters

Edvinas Pauza — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:28:04 +0000

Språk Svenska

Last Friday, 1st of June, Green Group hosted a conference of Green Press officers and Webmasters. As Amelia is part of the Green Group, I had an opportunity to attend and learn about how best to utilize new media to connect with people.

The first module in the morning was discussion on the blurring of lines between social and traditional media. First speaker was Duane Raymond, who has managed to make such a great use of social media that he runs his own agency fairsay.com, which helps organisations to make campaign count, especially in the digital sphere. Duane has experience with a wide range of campaigns organisations such as Greenpeace, Oxfam, WWF, Amnesty International.

Second panellist was a veteran of EU correspondence and environmental journalism, Lorenzo Consoli, who was more of the sceptic towards the new media, admitted to only recently starting to use Twitter and no other social media. His lack of enthusiasm for new media was best showed by lack of response to my twitter message, which his name was tagged in.

Afterwards we proceeded onto the second module on the challenges of campaign communication, and ´Rising political forces - anti-establishment parties and movements´ which as name suggest was partially based on Pirate Party with particular emphasis given to the German example. The first part was on nuclear energy and green economy, which was very much the main topic for the green press officers and webmasters gathered inBrusselsfrom different green member countries. Set contributions were provided from Mari Kamaja, and Pavlina Pacakova.

While the second part of the module concentrated on the Pirate Party. Number of green participants raised their concern that Pirate Party giving the example ofGermany, was stealing the limelight from the Greens. Apparently their current tactics is to ignore, instead of attacking our policies. However, dedicating part of the conference to Pirates, is hardly ignoring, among many of things commented were Pirates lack of position on key policy areas, with particularly reference to the foreign policy.

Introductory speeches were made by Marja Honkonen, who was a panellist fromFinland, however she concentrated her introduction on far-right party in her country. While the other panellist from Germany, Michael Scharfschwerdt, described the German Pirates, as neither left, nor right but cosmopolitan from the Internet side.

The last module of the day hosted two workshops on how to communicate the economic crisis and greens solutions and on the Search engine optimisation. As the first workshop was primarily aimed at Green party, I went to the second one, which wasn't anything new, but was very useful reminder and revisit aspects of SEO that might of been back of the head and a bit rusty. Workshop was facilitated by charismatic fellow called Peter Ross, who was fromNetherlandsand shared a lot of enthusiasm for Internet and use of social media, he runs his own firm admiun.nl, and application design company in Romania.

All the people mentioned in this blog, are on Twitter, so feel free to follow them or me, as I try to tweet on events that I go to, and this will provide you with another insight into the event @edvinpaus , adios Amigos!

SHARING: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age

Edvinas Pauza — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:28:36 +0000

Språk Svenska

This upcoming Tuesday, 15th of May, Ms Amelia´s Andersdotter´s office is organising a book launch inside the European Parliament. The book ´SHARING: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age´ is written by a Net culture scholar Philippe Aigrain, with contributions from his daughter, Suzanne Aigrain. As the title of the book suggests, it describes file sharing of digital cultural works between individuals, and attempts to address the real challenges facing culture in a digital world. The books sets out the conditions necessary for valuable cultural functions to remain sustainable in this context. It very much tackles the sometimes controversial topics in a high detail that Pirate Party advocates; it's very much at the forefront of technological progress, and a brilliant introduction into emerging digital economy structure. As European Commission representative said in ITRE committee, which Ms Amelia is a full member of, "we are living through the Third Industrial Revolution". So please feel free to download your free copy of the book, and provide you input and views of the future digital economy

Last week,

Edvinas Pauza — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:16:17 +0000

Språk Svenska

European Parliament produced fruitful discussion on the Internet issues and in particularly ACTA.

The first meeting was held on Tuesday, based on ´New forms of online advertising´, as current trademark laws are complex and impose particular burden on SME´s (Small-medium enterprises). European Commission is proposing to harmonise trademark regulations acrossEurope, between different national laws. So that small and medium size companies could take full advantage of access to the global market that the Internet offers.

The same day Green Group discussed potential initiative for the ´Internet Bill of Rights´, which would act as a signal to which principles Green group adheres to. The idea of ´Internet Bill of Rights´ comes from publics rising concerns regarding government surveillance of the Internet. This has motivated many of the mainstream politicians to jump on the ´Internet issue´ bandwagon, which means that not only members of the Pirate Party will look after the online interests of the European citizens, but also many other politicians from the mainstream parties will take more active role in deliberations. By no means is this a negative outcome, as long as politicians fully understand the issues they are voting on, it should make the debate more democratic. Bringing digital issues to the fore of the agenda, was one of the initial objectives for the Pirate party.

The best example of how popular feelings regarding the Internet have affected mainstream politics is best displayed by ACTA debate. The rapporteur for ACTA responsible committee INTA (International Trade) S&D MEP David Martin switched positions and has indicated that he will now recommend a ´no´ vote, with a Pirate Party MEP Ms Amelia´s Andersdotter´s committee ITRA (Industry, Research and Energy) also providing a ´no´ opinion to the INTA. While committee on Development, DEVE, is said to provide consent for ACTA. While, LIBE (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs) and JURI (Legal Affairs) are still left to decide on their final opinion. A vote to European Parliament should be put forward by July, thus still expect a lot of heated discussions and debates to come. As a ´no´ vote would break an International Agreement which took years to agree and consumed plenty of effort to keep the negotiations secret from the public eyes.

There has already been a lot said in regards to ACTA, with so many people participating in the debate that its difficult to add anything fruitful. However, what we can confidently understand about ACTA is that it deals primarily with the Intellectual Property Rights, IPR affect a wide range of sectors, from healthcare, luxury to entertainments industry. Internet was not primarily an issue for ACTA, but because we share content online, it touches upon copyright laws. This is where potential dangers of ACTA towards the future of Internet development really kicks-in, it would allow copyright owners of music and video content to destabilise the growth of social media. The size of digital content online has only been expanding, which indicates that the copyright laws are trusted. However, ACTA´s draconian laws would potentially undermine online world by putting a stop to content sharing and the growth of digital economy. Other negative affects would be an increase in barriers of entry to market for many entrepreneurs, as many innovative products would be put under threat, hurting the whole SME industry, as well as many other negative implications freedom of expression

The last event of the week was discussion of ´Human Rights on the Internet, perspectives fromTunisiaand Syria´, the issue has become extremely dominant as companies and NGO´s have increasingly important role to play in making sure that Human Rights are not infringed by government use of modern communication technologies. Western companies in case of Tunisia and Syria have supplied technology to governments for Internet censorship, while for some companies it has been primary source of income. This invoked calls for requirement for far stricter regulations on supply of surveillance technologies to authoritarian regimes, by organising MEP Marietje Schaake. Representative from Nokia-Siemens networks were also present to explain practical details of supplying IT technologies. Country discussed wasIran, where trade with Iranians is being ceased now due to Human Rights violations.

Online Privacy & Document Freedom Day

Edvinas Pauza — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:14:57 +0000

Språk Svenska

European Commission has initiated reforms to the Data protection directive and regulations for the public and private sector. Current patchwork of national rules with current European legal framework, were drawn up in the early 90s and came into force in 1995, at the time only 1% of European population were using the internet. These outdated laws put uncertainty on creating a strong single digital market, and require an update. Update to stronger data protection should increase consumer trust in their privacy online being safer, which will lead to further growth in digital economy of Europe.

European Commission expects "clear and precise identification of all the relevant elements underpinning the right to be forgotten online", to enhance data security, increase accountability of data handling, and provide real "teeth" to the sanctions for infringements of your online privacy.

Regulations will be binding not only for the private sector, but the directive will also apply to the public sector, as cross-border data transactions between authorities, as well as for domestic use such as police, judiciary, and medical purposes.

Approach to the data protection is planned to be comprehensive, horizontal with an aim to harmonize data protection law. This should reduce red-tape and beurocracy, the deliberation process has only just began and commission is willing to listen to all stakeholders involved via open meetings, workshops. New legal framework should not be seen as an obstacle to the flow of data, but compliment it by increasing consumer trust and simplifying it.

The main change will be ensuring that "right to be forgotten" responsibility will rest on the shoulders of private companies this time.

While 29th of March, is also known as a Document Freedom Day, which is celebrated world-wide, for this occasion Green Party-EFA held an annual event at the European Parliament, supported by Free Software Foundation Europe.

The day was dedicated to highlighting importance of open standards, to ensure freedom of access between different data formats, in order to avoid monopolies from exploiting the market and consumers. The event was organised predominantly from an e-book angle, with makers of tablet reader 'Bookeen' presenting the history of their company's digital tablet readers.

There were a number of other notable speakers and presentations, including Dr. Charles Haley from software maker 'Calibre', who discussed data formats and troubles with DRM-Digital Rights Management. Open standards are quite a technical and complex topic, but the public is increasingly becoming aware of its real meaning and impact. As representative from Ms Neelie Kroes cabinet, Dr. Carl-Christian Buhr, described the importance of public procurements and standardisation, as public institutions purchase tablet readers, its important that they are not locked to one single operating system.

Hello everyone!

Edvinas Pauza — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:46:49 +0000

Språk Svenska

My name is Edvinas and I had a lucky opportunity to be an intern at Ms Amelias office in Brussels. Last year I graduated with International Relations BA degree from Keele University and will be assisting with work at ‘Committee on International Trade’.

I was born in Lithuania, Kaunas, and permanently lived there till the age of 11. Next 11 years, second half of my life I spent studying in Britain. As soon as I graduated I moved to Brussels, Belgium, to gain practical work experience.

My interests primarily lie in the sectors of internet and technology, however you can find me researching a wide variety of topics, from health to energy industry. I’m very passionate about the developments in the information economy and the impact of social media upon the democratic process and public affairs.

In the future I plan to pursue further academic research into the legal aspects of the EU actorness towards international organisations with emphasis on the United Nations. At University I was a member of Model UN society, where I had the priviledge to hold a position as a treasurer and was later provided with an opportunity to participate at Oxford MUN, representing South Korea.

Would describe myself as a bit of current affairs media, publishing geek, I adore quality journalism, news, magazines. In my spare time I enjoy observing public affairs environment, especially of British and Lithuanian politics. As well as promoting release of public data to improve public policy making and services for the citizens. 20th century political ideologies never interested me and hence I was never active in party politics, however I follow developments of Pirate Party movement very closely, especially Lithuanias Pirate Party, which is just getting established. My belief is that Pirate Party movement is different, its a 21st century kind of political movement.