Yesterday the committee for Industry, Research and Energy voted in favour of a proposal that should  make the information held by public administratrion in the Member States more accessible for citizens, including for their re-use by interested individuals and businesses.

Today the members of the Industry committee of the European Parliament voted their opinion on the completion of the digital singel market.

The European Parliament is expected to vote in January next year on a key file for the future of our ICT economy: the shaping of its future infrastructure. Technically it is a "proposal for a regulation on the guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks" . Translation: the text will impose a framework that will "orientate" the way EU public money will be spent for the next telecommunication infrastructures during 2013-2020.

 

As my political awareness has been increasing I have realised how important it is to have independent experts. Whenever you go deep into a controversial, political issue, at one more or less quick moment, often the crucial  question that comes to your mind is:  do we have independent experts we can rely on to tell us what comes the closest to the truth and therefore can help us defining what action we should take to solve the problem?

 

For the liberals of the European Parliament, "the play is over"

 

Today the president of the ALDE group (liberals) within the European Parliament announced they will vote against ACTA.

 EU Data retention directive in Germany

 Germany tries to find a compromise on its implementation of the EU data retention directive but risks to be sanctioned by the European Commission.

 At the end of last month the French Parliament passed a new law enabling the digitalisation and commercial exploitation by a mandatory collective management society of out-of-commerce, 'unavailable' books, edited before 2001 but not sold anymore,  by a sort of a 'default setting'. The authors have 6 months to oppose the process if they whish to, after that the exploitation of their work will occur automatically under terms and conditions they would have not priory agreed with.

 

 Germany: 1 MBite/s Broadband almost everywhere

 

Censorship
Unionized workers of KBS, the nation’s largest broadcaster, have voted to go on strike, joining journalists of MBC who walked out more than a month ago. Like the union of MBC, KBS journalists and other staff are calling for the resignation of the company president who has allegedly censored coverage critical of President Lee Myung-bak.

 

 The different Apple's conflicts with Samsung on one side and Motorola on the other side were substantially 'updated' this week.