Digital / Legislation: The digital service act implementing regulation standardises the format, the content and the reporting periods of the transparency reports (Press release 4 4 November 2024).
SEO parasites / Regulation: Google launches a fight against SEO parasites. The practice consists of using the reputation of a well-referenced page in order to optimise the referencing and visibility of another page. The problem with this practice is that it encourages the advent of mediocre quality content, with lots of advertising. At the same time, quality sites find themselves at the bottom of the rankings when a Google search is performed. The company recognised the problem and changed its policy in March 2024 to combat spam and poor-quality content. This policy has now been reinforced by the announcement that it is a violation to manipulate the reputation of a highly ranked site, regardless of the degree of direct involvement of the host site. Licensing agreements, subcontracting or partial ownership agreements do not excuse these practices, which are considered abusive (Press release 19 November 2024)
Competition / Justice: The European Commission has fined Meta €797.72 million for breaching EU antitrust rules by linking its online advertising service, Facebook Marketplace, to its personal social network, Facebook, and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online advertising service providers when Meta is dominant in the personal social network market (Press release, 14 November 2024).
Anti-piracy / Investigation: On 18 October 2024, Ofcom launched an investigation to determine whether the communications provider Tismi has taken appropriate steps to ensure that the telephone numbers allocated to it are not misused, to commit scams. As Ofcom is the body responsible for allocating telephone numbers in the UK, it carries out investigations to ensure that these operators comply with Ofcom’s consumer protection rules. It checks that telephone companies carry out due diligence checks on their business customers to prevent scammers from accessing valid numbers, or that they monitor the level of risk posed by a business customer by watching out for any misuse of numbers (Press release 18 October 2024.)
Neighbouring rights / Justice: Various press publishers such as Le Figaro, Le Monde and Le Parisien have decided to take legal action against the social network X, as well as Microsoft for its search engine Bing and its social network LinkedIn for using without remuneration content produced by their journalists (Press release 8 November 2024).
European digital sovereignty: Ecosia and Qwant announce the creation of the joint venture, European Search Perspective (EUSP), which aims to develop and build a search engine infrastructure in Europe (Press release, 8 November 2024).
Regulation / Social Networks: TikTok has announced that its application’s “beauty filters”, which enable users to add virtual make-up to their selfies that grossly distorts their facial features, will no longer be accessible to minors by the end of the year (Press release 24 November 2024).
Regulation: The French ESN Arcom has appointed e-Enfance, a non-profit organization, as its 1st trusted flagger (Press release, 6 November 2024).
Intellectual Property / Justice: In a decision dated November 25, 2024, the EUIPO declares the trademark THE OLYMPICS to be substantially revoked. The Office declares revocation for non-use of the entire trademark in all classes of goods and services (1 to 45), except for the class “Entertainment; sporting and cultural activities related to sports” (EUIPO decision dated November 25, 2024).
Intellectual property / Legislation: On November 22, 2024, WIPO member states adopted the Riyadh Treaty on Design Law (Press release 22 November 2024).
Piracy / Justice: European law enforcement agencies supported by Europol and Eurojust have dismantled one of the largest illegal streaming networks operating within and outside the EU. This criminal network of 102 suspects illegally distributed copyright-protected works to more than 22 million users worldwide (Press release, 27 November 2024).
Competition / Justice: The European Commission has fined Pierre Cardin and its main licensee Ahlers a total of €5.7 million for infringing EU rules on anti-competitive practices by restricting cross-border sales of Pierre Cardin branded clothing and sales of these products to certain customers. The Commission’s investigation revealed that between 2008 and 2021, Pierre Cardin and Ahlers had engaged in anti-competitive agreements and concerted practices aimed at protecting Ahlers from competition in the EEA countries where Ahlers held a Pierre Cardin license, in violation of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement (Press release, 28 November 2024).
