05/31/2023
🇫🇷 E-commerce / Justice: The French Consumer Association UFC-Que Choisir files a complaint against 8 e-commerce sites for misleading commercial practices and asks the European Commission to prohibit any reference price system other than that provided for by the Omnibus directive (Press release of May 31 2023).
🇫🇷 Counterfeiting / CDO: More than 30,000 bottles of a soda bearing the label “Crown Fruit Champagne” were destroyed at the request of the Champagne Committee (Press release of May 24, 2023).
🇫🇷 Counterfeiting / Justice: In a case opposing Hermès Sellier to the company Créations Guiot de Bourg, the marketing of a range of jewellery copying the jewellery of Hermès Sellier created a risk of confusion in the minds of customers with its iconic “Anchor chain” motif. The Paris Court of Appeal has therefore clearly characterised acts of unfair and parasitic competition distinct from counterfeiting (Cass. Com. May 25, 2023, n°22-14.651).
🇫🇷 Personal Data / Regulation: The French National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) publishes its 2022 annual report: strengthening support for companies and administrations, public information campaigns and digital education for young people, complaints and repressive action, future European data regulations (Press release of May 23, 2023).
🇪🇺 IPTV / Regulation: Europol and the Dutch Tax Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) announce that they have dismantled one of the largest illegal IPTV service in Europe serving more than one million users (Press release of 23 May 2023).
🇪🇺 Personal Data / Regulation: Europe fines Meta 1.2 billion euros for data transfers between the EU and the United States (Press release of May 22, 2023).
🇫🇷 Piracy / Regulation: The French Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (ARCOM) publishes its first report on the fight against piracy (Press release of May 22, 2023).
05/19/2023
🇫🇷 Counterfeiting / Prescription: The prescription is 5 years from the formal notice, regardless of the prosecution of acts of counterfeiting (CA Paris, May 17, 2023, 21/15795).
🇺🇸 Social Media / Justice: US Supreme Court rules out social media liability for terrorist content (Twitter v. Taamneh n°21–1496 (SCOTUS, May 18, 2023; Gonzalez v. Google n °21-1333 (SCOTUS, May 18 2023).
🇺🇸 Copyright / Justice: The United States Supreme Court orders the Warhol Foundation to pay royalties to photographer Lynn Goldsmith for the transformation of her snapshot of Prince (Press release of May 18, 2023).
🇫🇷 Personal Data / Regulation: Evolution of web practices in terms of cookies: the French National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) assesses the impact of its action plan (Press release of May 15, 2023).
🇫🇷 Personal Data / Regulation: The French National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) imposed a penalty of 380,000 euros against the company DOCTISSIMO for having failed to fulfill its obligations under the GDPR, in particular that of obtaining the consent of people to the collection and use of their health data, and for not having respected the rules on cookies (Press release of May 17, 2023).
🇫🇷 AI / Regulation: The French National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) publishes an action plan for the deployment of AI systems that respect the privacy of individuals (Press release of May 16, 2023).
05/12/2023
🇫🇷 Copyright / Justice: Dismissal of the action based on copyright infringement justified by the lack of originality of the so-called “selfies” photographs (CA Paris, pole 5 – ch. 2, May 12 2023, no. 21/16270).
🇫🇷 Piracy / Justice: The Paris court ordered the main French ISPs to block the file host Uptobox (TJ Paris, May 11, 2023).
🇫🇷 Cloud / Regulation The French Competition Authority issues an opinion on certain provisions of the French bill aimed at securing and regulating the digital space relating to cloud computing (Press release of May 11, 2023).
🇫🇷 Olympics 2024 / Ticketing: 44 websites suspected of illegally reselling Paris 2024 Olympics tickets have been detected by cyber investigators from the gendarmerie (Press release of May 11, 2023).
🇮🇹 Apple / Advertising: The Italian competition authority (AGCM) has announced that it is opening an investigation into Apple’s new advertising rules for “alleged abuse of a dominant position in the application market” (Press release of May 11, 2023).
🇺🇸 Google / OSINT: During its I/O 23 conference, Google announced to restore functionalities allowing to better know the context of images entitled “About this image” (Conference of May 10, 2023).
🇫🇷 Web3 / Legislation: The French bill to secure and regulate the digital space includes an article authorising the government to legislate by ordinance to define a regulatory framework for blockchain-based games and NFTs (Bill N °593 of May 10, 2023).
🇫🇷 Personal Data / Regulation: The French National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) sanctions again Clearview AI, the American start-up specialised in facial recognition, for failure to comply a CNIL decision of October 17, 2022 (Press release of May 10, 2023).
🇺🇸 Cybersecurity / Regulation: The United States Department of Justice announces that it has neutralised the Russian malware “Snake” (Press release of May 9, 2023).
🇺🇸 Cybersecurity / Personal Data: The American computer storage specialist, Western Digital, acknowledges that hackers had access to the personal information of certain customers, more than a month after being the victim of a cyberattack (Press release of May 9, 2023).
🇺🇸 Neighbouring Rights / Regulation: Google will pay $100 million over 3 years to the American daily New York Times in order to distribute its content (Press release of May 8, 2023).
🇪🇺 Data Act / Cybersecurity: 5 German groups, including SAP and Siemens, warn European officials about the risks posed by the proposed European Data Act regulation on cybersecurity and the competitiveness of companies in Europe (Press release of May 8 2023).
05/05/2023
🇪🇺 Piracy / Regulation: The European Commission has published a recommendation to better combat the illegal broadcasting of live events, in particular sporting events (Publication of May 4, 2023).
🇫🇷 [ Big Tech / Regulation ] On May 4, the French Competition Authority took precautionary measures accused of abuse of a dominant position in the advertising verification sector (Decision n°23-MC-01 of May 4 2023).
🇺🇸 [ Copyright / Justice ] Sued in Manhattan federal court for plagiarising Marvin Gaye’s song Let’s Get It On, the singer Ed Sheeran won the case as the jury found the song Thinking Out Loud was created “independently” (Press release of May 4, 2023).
🇺🇸 [ Personal data / Regulation ] An open letter against several anti-encryption bills has been signed by more than fifty organisations including Mozilla, Proton, Internet Society and Tor Project to defend privacy (Press release of May 3, 2023).
🇫🇷 [ Cyber attack / Geopolitics ] Many French town hall websites have been victims of defacement attacks by pro-Russian hackers (Press release of May 3, 2023).
🇫🇷 [ Influencers / Regulation ] The French General Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) intensified its checks on influencers in the first half of 2023. A statement of offence, liable to prosecution for misleading commercial practices, was established for 60% of the influencers checked (Press release of May 3, 2023 ).
🇺🇸 Cybercrime / Google Google Registry has announced the launch of 8 new top-level domain names: .dad, .phd, .prof, .esq, .foo, .zip, .mov and .nexus, which many deplore cybersecurity professionals, in particular concerning the risks of phishing campaigns via .zip (Press release of May 3, 2023).
🇪🇺 AI / Regulation: The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) published an opinion on May 2 on the draft directive on the liability of artificial intelligence (Publication of May 2, 2023).
🇫🇷 Copyright / Justice: Failing to have presented a particular originality (strict assessment), a history book cannot be protected by French copyright (CA Bordeaux, May 2, 2023).
🇺🇸 [ Navigation / Security ] Google Chrome has announced the replacement of the padlock indicating a secure connection with a more neutral logo (Press release of May 2, 2023).
🇪🇺 [ Digital / Legislation ] The Digital Markets Act entered into force on May 2 (Regulation (EU) 2022/1925).
🇪🇺 [ Cybercrime / Regulation ] An operation coordinated by Europol allowed law enforcement to seize the illegal dark web “Monopoly Market” and arrest 288 drug and firearms dealers (Press release May 2, 2023).
🇫🇷 [ Personal data / Leak ] Following a “computer error” by the French Organisations for the Collection of Social Security and Family Benefit Contributions (URSSAF), 29,000 people had access to contribution schedules that did not concern them and thus exposed personal data such as names, addresses and bank details (Press Release of the May 1, 2023).
🇷🇺 [ Applications / CSR ] The dating application Tinder announces that it will cease its activities in Russia as of June 30, 2023 to “protect human rights” (Match Group, Annual Impact Report, May 1, 2023, page 37).
🇺🇸 Crypto-assets / Regulation: The FBI in collaboration with the Ukrainian authorities announces the seizure of 9 crypto-assets trading platforms accused of facilitating illegal activities on the web (Press release of May 1, 2023).
