Latest blog articles
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The horrendous military activities of Russia in Ukraine have caused a severe backlash from tech giants. YouTube clamped down on Kremlin-backed channels for spreading war propaganda. Meta allowed its users to wish death to Russian armed forces. On top of that, Twitter is constantly policing tweets by...
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24 February marked a turning point in modern history: Russia barbarously attacked Ukraine. Apart from other drastic implications, including the expulsion of Russia from the Council of Europe, the war set off a new wave of political repression within a country.
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Digitalization has gradually changed business models and reshaped human lifestyles. The rise of business models based on the collection and processing of consumer data allows undertakings to charge business customers and final consumers different prices for the same goods or services, offered at...
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Recently I was interviewed by Dutch news radio station BNR on the question whether there are legal or economic arguments to split up Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. Because the interview was short, I could not give a truly balanced answer. Rather, from my Law &...
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Although the delta variant is currently leading to a sharp increase in the number of positive Covid 19 tests, hospital admissions are fortunately still low. Let's hope it stays this way and that with the growing number of vaccinations we slowly move in the right direction with Covid 19 in Europe. If...
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Telegram is a powerful tool for end-to-end encrypted communication and one of the most popular messenger apps in Russia. However, one aspect often evades public attention: Telegram is swamped with bots which gather and disseminate personal data.
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Recently there has been a strong wave of anti-China sentiments expressed in the media and within certain political circles, both in the United States and within the European Union. The Netherlands has been no exception to this.
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The Digital Services Act (‘DSA’) is part of the long-awaited package aimed at providing a transparency and accountability framework for online platforms and laying down additional duties for large providers with gatekeeping powers. There is surely a lot to unpack in this hefty proposal. This piece...
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Almost 20 years ago, in 2002, I had the honour to give one of the “William Harvey lectures” at the University of Padua, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Englishman’s graduation with a degree in medicine from the famous Italian university.
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After an exhausting few months in the ‘COVID-19 era’—as we can call it now—after months of hard work and the stress of dealing with a pandemic, everybody is looking to take a break during the summer. But unlike in recent years when we could plan our summer vacation months in advance, this year it...