food industry and processing industry. 30 Austria Hungary has RDI cooperation with its western neighbour in terms of energy efficient solutions and the establishment of energy storage sites, primarily in order to increase energy
An S3 website 17 was created to provide information and involve those interested in the planning process.
The website consists of four sections: it presents the relevant Hungarian planning documents and the EU methodology;
The quadrilateral discussions (quadruple helix) of the Local Research Priorisation Working groups, on-line questionnaire available on the S3 website and the interface for commenting the strategy allowed the stakeholders to tell
so it plays an important role in the site selection decisions of large enterprises (National RDI Strategy).
Furthermore, open laboratories could be an implementation site for open innovation efforts (they can also play the role of a so-called living lab). This includes in particular the cases where a company opens up a problem to be solved or a research and development task.
, the talented students, 30 Publicly financed research site: higher education institutions, academic research centres and state-owned nonprofit research centres 79 doctoral students carrying out their research there.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Digital technologies and the Internet have transformed many areas of business from Google and Amazon to Airbnb and Kickstarter.
where commercial Internet providers weren't providing a connection. The idea was to build a‘mesh network'where each person in the network used a small radio transmitter that functioned like a wireless router to become a node in the Guifi net.
even though the web itself was founded at CERN to further a vision of scientific knowledge sharing. While massive commercial investment and business models fuelled the web's incredible growth,
the use of platforms like Facebook to serve social good has been disputed accidental and secondary to their primary commercial purpose.
in particular campaigning sites such as Avaaz and parts of the collaborative economy and the maker movement.
For example, despite the Internet being funded a military research project and the web a scientific project at their inceptions,
the Internet and web were based on open standards and a radically decentralised architecture that could be harnessed by any actor.
So the Web was able to reach a critical mass of connectivity so that both commercial entities (like Google) and noncommercial entities (like Wikipedia) were able to exploit the network effect.
Beyond the Internet, many new technologies such as open hardware may have positive network externalities. This network effect applies in a straightforward manner for some services such as social networking sites like Facebook,
and sites that require large user-bases like Wikipedia or Airbnb, but it may not apply easily to some other services such as edemocracy platforms, caring networks and local currencies.
For each kind of socially innovative service, we want to determine how they can maximise their impact using the infrastructure made available by the widespread usage of digital tools such as the Internet.
On the level of platforms for client operating systems such as Windows and Android, open standards have fostered innovation by allowing technologies like web browsers to be implemented over different underlying platforms,
and vendor lock in on the web. This was a hard and contested battle, which turned out to be the best way to do things, even commercially.
as their applications need access to social data held on third-party sites and permissions to get into proprietary‘app stores.'
an increasing concentration of power in services in the hands of a few data aggregators, none of which are based in Europe (Google controlling nearly 82%of the global search market and 98%of the mobile search market,
Google has developed the open source Android operating system and spawned innovation in applications worldwide; Facebook has enabled the building of thousands of apps
For example, even the European Smart Cities project risks being dominated by US companies such as IBM, Google and Ciscos, partly because of the lack of alternatives.
Take for example the commercial success of Google: Google has built already one of the world's largest networks of computers and data centres for online-search results,
and can repurpose their technology in order to expand into other data-driven services in order to increase their value, profit and marketability.
Delivering a web service, Network, Research project, Research project, Advocating and campaigning, Maker and hacker spaces, Investing and Funding, Event, Incubators and Accelerators, Advisory or expert body, Education And Training. 3 Technology Trends:
create and share on the web. It achieves this through two primary activities Ouishare. net and collaborative economy events.
whilst participatory web platforms such as Wikigender and Wikiprogress developed by the OECD facilitate the linking of National statistics to actual individual living conditions.
and web application that aims to track every government and corporate financial transaction across the world and to present that data in a useful and engaging form.
and implement open social web standard standards, contributing to the W3c Federated Social Web Working group. 32 Growing a Digital Social Innovation Ecosystem for Europe Safecast is both the name of a Geiger counter built by the open source community as well as a global
sensor network where Safecast owners can map and freely share their radiation measurements in open data sets.
privacy-aware and crypto tools that bounce Internet users'and websites'traffic through‘relays'run by thousands of volunteers around the world,
It then invited programmers and developers to make apps and web services based on the data,
and Metropolitan Rennes in France have also set up open data websites at the regional level that can be considered good practices,
partners got together to explore the development of collaborative web projects and bottom-up broadband technologies15.
Growing a Digital Social Innovation Ecosystem for Europe DELIVERING A WEB SERVICE RESEARCH PROJECT EDUCATION
but via a recommendation system a future version of the Digital Social Innovation website could introduce innovators to both other local innovators
Crowdsourcing Social web entrepreneurs Startup Europe Smart Cities Internet of things Bottom up and grassroots approaches A counterpoint to the top-down strategy is the bottom-up,
Relevant bottomup initiatives are the Collective Awareness Platform for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS), Web entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs in the field of active and healthy ageing, digital champions,
the R&d funding at CERN led to the invention of the Web) Encourage people to think about:
One of the most well-known is supported the Google programme Google for Entrepreneurs36 that in 2011 created a campus where innovation
according to their websites, inspire, connect and enable individuals and institutions around the world to sustainably impact society.
the possibility to add (web) content and services themselves, access to devices and modular applications that talk to one another.
Federated Social Web Do-not-track technologies should be implemented in order to give users control over their social data and sensitive information,
Is federated the W3c Social Web Working Group58 to develop standards to make it easier to build
The federated web standards will also be implemented within the EC-funded D-CENT Project59 that is piloting federated social applications for participatory democracy.
A Magna carta for the Internet Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the Web is advocating for a sort of Magna carta for the Internet to estabilish basic rights and freedoms,
A Magna carta for all Web users could be directly crowd-sourced from the Web itself,
As an example, the Fukushima prefecture in Japan hosts a map of the Safecast data on its website,
/sites/default/files/good incubation wv. pdf 1 Combinatorial innovation means combining ideas that already exist into new forms,
Does the Web Extend the Mind available online at: http://www. ibiblio. org/hhalpin/homepage/publications/websci2013-halpin-web-extend-the-mind. pdf and published as Harry Halpin.
Does the web extend the mind? Proceedings of the ACM Web Science Conference (2013): 139-147.3 Over-the-top is a general term for service providers that develop services that are utilized over a network that is owned by traditional network operators.
Big OTT are Google, Skype, Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon and EBAY. 4 Sestini, Fabrizio.``Collective awareness platforms:
Engines for sustainability and ethics'.'Technology and Society Magazine, IEEE 31.4 (2012): 54-62.5 http://www. nesta. org. uk/publications/making-sense-uk-collaborative-economy Manchester
Institute of Innovation Research Compendium of Evidence on Innovation Policy http://www. innovation-policy. net/compendium/20 impacts of Innovation Policy:
http://ia4si. eu/Impact Assessment for Social Innovation https://ec. europa. eu/digital-agenda/sites/digital-agenda/files/IA4SI%20%E2
The tools for social innovation (2008) http://socialinnovationexchange. org/sites/default/files/event/attachments/Copy%20of%20generating social Innovation%20v4. pdf Innovation platform.
wikipedia. org/wiki/Knowledge commons 46 http://bit. ly/1kivc4h 47 http://www. w3. org/48 http://open-stand. org/about-us/principles/49 For more information
see the Communia website: http://bit. ly/V2knnk 50 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki/Reinventing innovation policy Policy Tools and Action 20 http://ec. europa. eu
/information society/digital-agenda/index en. htm 21 http://ec. europa. eu/research/innovation-union/index en. cfm 22 http://ec. europa. eu
-agenda/en/about-startup-europe Interoperabilidad 51 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki/Interfaz de programaci%C3%B3n de aplicaciones 52 http://es. wikipedia. org
/wiki/Extensible markup language 53 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki/Resource description framework 54 http://linkeddata. org/55 http://www. w3. org/TR/rdf
-sparql-query/56 http://www. theopeninter. net/57 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Dataportability 58 http://www. w3. org/Social
/WG 59 http://dcentproject. eu 60 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki/Hypertext transfer protocol secure 61 http://es. wikipedia. org/wiki/Red privada virtual 62
http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/End-to-end encryption 63 https://abc4trust. eu/64 http://www. ftc. gov/system/files/documents/reports
http://www. fairphone. com 70 http://bubforeurope. net 71 http://www. theiteams. org/72 http://www. nesta. org. uk/sites
. nominettrust. org. uk/sites/default/files/Nominet%20trust%20-%20 Triple%20helix%20overview%20paper. pdf 77 http://bethnalgreenventures. com/78
-Jahreskongresses-29c3-des-Chaos-Computer-Clubs-CCC. jpg Accessed 29th january 2015 Page 34 http://www. e-living. net/sites/default/files
http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Arduino#mediaviewer/File: Arduino316. jpg Accessed 29th january 2015 Page 47 (2014) Smart Citizen kit online Flickr, Al Billings Available from:
https://budgetparticipatif. paris. fr/bp/jsp/site/Portal. jsp? document id=133&portlet id=100 Accessed 29th january 2015 Page 69 online http://lesapprentisabarcelona. blogspot. co. uk/Accessed 29th january 2015 Page 70 online http
http://diaryofanelearner. com/2013/04/10/web-2-0-vs-web-3-0-what-really-Is accessed-the-difference 29th january 2015 Page 76 Unknown (2013) data
and professional development activities through a dedicated website and a published handbook. 5. Implement the professional development activities for mobile learning across other faculties at the University of Wollongong
and disseminate in web-based template form to other universities across Australia and overseas. The following questions framed the research:
and a prototype project website was created. The leadership team, together with professional development and IT experts, met fortnightly for planning and monitoring,
Science education Physical education Visual Arts education Maths education IT in education Multimedia education Web-based learning Literacy education Reflective practice Adult education Final
project conference to present findings and discuss model and principles Finalisation of project website Publication of edited book Long-term evaluation Products from each phase Phase 1:
Workshop resource (processes and procedures for others to implement) Phase 3: 12 case descriptions and evaluations Website of exemplars and strategy descriptions Phase 4:
Final conference Edited book Project report Final public website Evaluation (Reeves & Hedberg, 2003) Review of literature and existing initiatives Formative evaluation of PD
workshops Formative evaluation of learning environments and project website Effectiveness evaluation of 12 learning environments Effectiveness evaluation of whole project Peer review of chapters by team
These catalogues are available on the project website. At the end of Phase 1, the project structures had been put into place (i e.,
, project management, team meetings, project website), a literature review had been conducted, and the educational affordances of the devices had been investigated and reported.
or communication from one site to another. When teachers had designed their learning tasks, they were able to trial their ideas in the PD group during this phase,
supports and assessment items) and uploaded descriptions of pedagogies to the project website. Proceedings ascilite Melbourne 2008:
and the project website. A final 2-day conference was held after all cases had been implemented and evaluated at the end of the second year of the project.
The project website also includes succinct case study descriptions and exemplars of the pedagogies developed for the m-learning devices.
These guidelines will be published in the edited book, in conference papers and workshops, on the website and through other means such as listservs and electronic newsletters.
a project website, literature review created as an Endnote library with embedded papers, a searchable catalogue of educational affordances of the mobile devices,
the project manager also set in place processes such as sending updates for the website to reflect the progress of the project,
The project website served as a focal point for the project activities, schedule and resources. In each phase, the substantive value of the website grew
both as an important communication device and as a repository for relevant resources, and products generated by the project.
Figure 1 shows the home page and the technology affordances page for the ipod on the project website.
Web pages from the project website Conclusion Although general guidelines on the use of technology have been delineated by MCEETYA (2005),
Supporting teachers'action learning within a web environment. In P. Kommers, & G. Richards (Eds.),
, available at http://www. cabinetoffice. gov. uk/sites/default/files/resources/uk-government-ict-strategy-2011 0. odt 5 House of commons Public Administration
Another firm with 40 employees, has established a company-wide intranet with an on-line BBS (bulletin board system)
These companies'intranet and electronically integrated customer database not only provide the latest client-related information,
Other major uses include providing product information (56%),setting up a Web page (54%),purchasing goods/services (53%)and building customer connections (48%)(Scally et al.
By 2000, annual e-commerce sales of magnet products via the site had reached already more than USD 700 000,
and the site has remained operational and generating revenue through 2004, although they still do not accept customers outside of Japan.
which helped the company to create the Web page and took training to enable him to update it.
To increase the number of visits to the site, the company used both an on-line campaign and off-line advertising.
A free magnet offer campaign on the Web site combined with an on-line questionnaire to (potential) customers lured 1 000 visitors to the site during the peak early month.
an on-line product catalogue was added later to the site. After the local newspaper covered the company's e-commerce growth,
In fact, some small shop owners, especially those that outsource Web page design and updating have found it difficult to contain site development costs
which are more or less beyond the firm's control (Ernst & young, 2001). Figure 8. Ongoing e-commerce costs for SMES in Australia,
2000 54%19%9%7%4%3%3%1%Website maintenance Telephony ISP charges/website hosting Responding to e-mails Advertising License fees Bank fees
Some placed detailed corporate information on the site to illustrate their technology and financial base (Tiessen et al.
A slightly higher percentage of firms in manufacturing, wholesale and business services receive orders over the Web than those in retail and construction.
although it is not clear how many of these orders were received over the Web rather than through other means, such as fax or telephone.
Small players with a Web page can now attract those preferring personalised (and possibly less expensive) services.
Since the Internet and many travel-related sites allow on-line customers to compare the price of 32 air tickets and other travel services,
Several studies suggest that even the most price-sensitive Internet consumers respond very strongly to well-known, heavily branded (large) retailers, such as amazon com.
Another textile producer with 300 employees does not use the Web for buying and selling because the company is worried about decreasing their competitive advantage by making information available to competitors (Scupola, 2002).
The site has attracted customers not only in the United kingdom and Ireland but also throughout the world Australia;
The Web site now includes a customer feedback page that carries comments by customers who have bought an instrument through the site.
Some customers, impressed by the presentation of the instrument on the site visit the physical shop.
The Web site can also be found through Violink, a popular violin-related site among individuals,
B2b on-line marketplaces and auction sites have also not been attractive to many SMES in the sector particularly in the light of most of these markets proving to be unstable and short-lived.
In addition, the policy agenda has also been evolving, with the focus shifting from connectivity and building simple web presence,
NET site (www. ause. net) and ebiz. enable site (www. strategis. ic. gc. ca/sc indps/ebiz/engdoc/homepage. php.
63 4. 2. 1 Price comparison websites...63 4. 2. 2 Restrictions on advertising...64 4. 2. 3 Unfair commercial practices...
and sales orders made via websites or systems of electronic data interchange, excluding manually typed e-mails. 5
http://www. bcg. com/documents/file84709. pdf 24 How the Internet is transforming the economy, a series of studies by the Boston Consulting Group commissioned by Google, 2010-2011;
The country of origin of the web trader can have major consequences, for example, for their right of withdrawal.
If the web trader is established in a non-EEA country, the provisions of the ECD do not apply45
"46 The judgment implies that service providers cannot limit themselves to offering an e-mail address accessible for their customers through the website.
in 8%of purchases, the phone number and in 12%of purchases, the e-mail address could not be found. 48 Article 5 (2) obliges web traders,
or more"friends"who then receive a standard message e g. inviting them to visit a particular website.
Case C-324/09, L'oréal v ebay, judgment of 12 july 2011, par. 95-96, available at:
in order to make sure that businesses adapt their websites. On the other hand, respondents to the e-commerce consultation expressed concerns that the contracting requirements of the ECD may have been legitimate and useful at the time
For example, when an authority in Member State A considers that the website of an online trader established in Member State B does not fulfil the transparency requirements of Article 5 of the ECD,
Many cases concern websites which give incomplete information such as failing to indicate all the taxes and costs included in a price.
Other cases concern websites where the trader's identity, location and VAT-numbers were missing,
An updated list is available on the e-commerce website of DG MARKT. 79 National websites contain general 78 Report from the Commission to the European parliament and of the Council on the application of Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004
the CPC-Network enforcement authorities both screen a sample of websites in a given sector for compliance with EU consumer legislation and take appropriate enforcement actions.
(2) develop the exchange of best practices through a common website and (3) develop tools
By way of example, a major video-sharing site reported that more than 24 hours of video are uploaded on its site every minute. 83 Checking all videos that are uploaded from possibly illegal sites would be too heavy a burden to continue providing the service
offering a video-sharing site would probably be too great a commercial risk. Other intermediaries also maintained that the liability exemptions of the E-commerce Directive are essential for their trust in online activities.
"83 Google contribution to the public consultation on the future of electronic commerce in the internal market and the implementation of the Directive on electronic commerce (2000/31/EC), available at:
This could include, for example, sites containing infringements of intellectual property rights (such as trademark or copyright infringements),
but also sites containing child pornography, racist and xenophobic content, defamation, incitements to terrorism or violence in general, illegal gambling offers, illegal pharmaceutical offers, fake banking services (phishing), data protection infringements,
The ECJ ebay vs. L'oréal judgment in case C-324/09 confirms that awareness in the sense of Article 14 can be obtained through a"notice"that is sent to an intermediary and that is sufficiently precise and substantiated.
several new services and activities have emerged that the legislators could not have foreseen, such as video-sharing sites, selling platforms, social networks and peer-2-peer services.
This has resulted in a degree of regulatory 85 Joined cases C-236/08 to C-238/08, Google vs.
whereas others, in particular selling platforms, video sharing sites, social networks and search engines, favoured the inclusion of those activities within the"safe harbour"regime.
in the UK case"TV Links"(R v Rock and Overton), 86 the court without further reasoning ruled that a hyperlinking website was a mere conduit activity that could benefit from the liability exemption
Google Inc.)stated that the Directive was not relevant for the liability of a news search service
Similarly, there is divergent national case law on video-sharing sites: French case law recently confirmed that video-sharing sites can benefit from the liability exemption for hosting activities, for instance in the Magdane vs.
Dailymotion case. 89 The fact that Dailymotion received advertisement revenues was irrelevant in determining whether it was a hosting service provider or not.
however, the Hamburg Court held (in Peterson v Google Inc and others90) that a video sharing site for videos uploaded by third parties cannot benefit 86 Crown Court, Gloucester, 06.02.2010, ref. no.
T20097013, available at: http://merlin. obs. coe. int/iris/2010/4/article26. en. html 87 Brussels Court of First Instance, 15.02.2007, ref. no. 7964;
The court ruled that Youtube could not benefit from a liability exemption for hosting providers as, for the following reasons,
o Youtube provides a specific layout of the website and Youtube's logo is shown in rather big letters above the playing video;
o Youtube provides links to related videos; o Youtube displays commercial video clips and not only content that expresses a personal opinion. o Because of the arrangement of the website the average user cannot tell at first sight that the videos were uploaded by the user and not by Youtube;
o The homepage of Youtube suggests that Youtube exercises editorial control as it suggests certain videos;
o Youtube actively connects advertisements to uploaded videos; o Youtube's Terms and Conditions indicate that Youtube can use the content uploaded on its site as its own content.
In Italy the Civil Court of Rome (RTI and others vs. Youtube and others) 91 also considered that a video-sharing site could not benefit from a liability exemption.
The court stated that Youtube was not to be regarded as a hosting provider but as a"digital broadcaster"and was considered consequently fully responsible for the published content.
Youtube would play an active role and would not limit its activities to providing server space for users to independently upload
and organise content. The case law on online selling platforms is fragmented also: The Paris Commercial Court considered that ebay might not benefit from a liability exemption for its hosting activities. 92 The court considered that the sellers on ebay's website (recipients of ebay's services in terms of the E-commerce Directive) act under the authority
or the control of ebay (the provider of an information society service in terms of the E-commerce Directive), in which case, in accordance with Article 14 (2) of the Directive,
the liability exemption for hosting activities does not apply. The court came to this conclusion
because ebay plays an active role in promoting sales with the objective of increasing profits by,
for instance, appointing sales managers, creating online"boutiques "and offering the option of becoming a"power seller".
"In the L'oréal vs. ebay case93 the Paris Civil Court considered that ebay could offer its clients various services on the same site without losing the right to benefit from a liability exemption.
However, only some of ebay's activities are covered by the definition of hosting of Article 14 of the E-commerce Directive
and eligible for the liability exemption (for instance ebay's selection of"daily deals"could not be covered) 91 Appeal Panel Decision of Civil Court of Rome, IP specialist section, 22.02.2010,
and Court of Rome, 15.12.2009, Section IX, RG n. 54218/08, available at: http://www. scribd. com/doc/38060158/Ordinanza-Tribunale-di-Roma-16-dicembre-2009-RTI-vs-Youtube 92 Paris Commercial Court, 30.06.2008;
available at: http://www. legalis. net/spip. php? page=jurisprudencedecision&id article=2354 93 Paris Civil Court, 13.05.2009;
page=jurisprudencedecision&id article=2639 29 In the ebay vs. Maceo case94, the Paris Civil Court considered that ebay's activities are covered by the definition of hosting.
That ebay receives revenues related to sales carried out on its website was considered irrelevant in this context. In this case, it was considered that ebay was not an editor as it could not be proven that ebay checks the messages that users post on the site.
The fact that ebay has designed the architecture and structure of its site and that it has developed systems for organising
and ranking the content on its site is not sufficient to conclude that it cannot benefit from the hosting liability exemption.
The UK High court in L'oreal vs. ebay95 considered without any further reasoning, that ebay's activities could not be covered by Article 14 of the ECD
because its activities would go far beyond the mere passive storage of information provided by third parties.
EBAY actively organises and participates in the processing and use of this information. The UK High court has decided not yet on the hosting status of ebay as it requested guidance from the European Court of Justice (see the judgement referred to in Chapters 3. 4. 2. 2 and 3. 4. 3. 1). Similarly fragmented
case law exists in relation to blogs discussion fora and social networks. For example: Usenet (a system in which users post messages to a newsgroup) was considered a caching provider by the German Regional Court of Munich96
because information was mirrored and stored on its service for about 30 days. A UK court, however, considered that British telecom operated a hoster in providing Usenet newsgroups (in the case Bunt v Tilley.)
97 The High court of England and Wales (Kaschke v. Gray Hilton) 98 refused to apply the liability exemption for hosting to a blog owner,
The defendant's involvement in the pages exceeded mere storage as he exercised some editorial control on parts of the website.
The Paris Court of First Instance99 refused to recognise a content aggregator displaying on its website links posted by third parties as a hosting provider
The fact that the site allowed the classification and structuring of certain information provided by users did not imply an editing activity.
Moreover, the hosting provider status was seen to follow from the fact that the site did not offer a possibility to check the information on certain websites referred to in users'posts.
The first case concerned Google's paid referencing service""Adwords",and its liability for infringements of trademarks held by The french luxury group LVMH,
104"Adwords",enables an economic operator to display advertising links to its site accompanied by a commercial message that appears on the right hand side of the screen
http://www. ifpi. org/content/library/Pirate-Bay-verdict-English-translation. pdf 104 Joined cases C-236/08 to C-238/08, Google vs.
HTML 31 through Google's search engine. These advertisement links appear whenever a"keyword"that can be reserved by an economic operator corresponds to the word (s) entered as a request in the search engine.
"and that Google had prevented not them from doing so. The french Cour de Cassation asked the ECJ
whether, the referencing service provider (Google) could be held liable for this. The ECJ in this case refers to recital 42 in the preamble of the Directive to conclude that an intermediary service provider"has neither knowledge of nor control over the information
which it stores"(paragraphs 113 and 114) In analysing the Google"Adwords"service, the ECJ notes that"with the help of software it has developed,
Google processes the data entered by advertisers and the resulting display of the ads is made under conditions which Google controls.
Thus Google determines the order of display according to, inter alia, the remuneration paid by the advertisement"(paragraph 116).
However, the ECJ considers that to examine Google's activity in the light of recital 42,
"the role played by Google in the drafting of the commercial message which accompanies the advertisement link
or in the establishment or selection of keywords is relevant"(paragraph 118, underlining added). The second ruling from the ECJ on the liability exemption regime concerns ebay and L'oréal.
In its ruling of 12 july 2011 In case C-324/09 (see also Chapters 3. 4. 2. 1 and 3. 4. 3. 1) the ECJ had been asked, inter alia,
whether the selling platform ebay could be held liable for trademark infringements committed (and possibly to be committed) through its site.
In order to attract new customers to its website, ebay had bought keywords, including trademarks held by L'oréal,
from paid internet referencing services (such as Google's"Adwords")."In parallel to this, L'oréal had identified several infringements of its trademarks through/by the selling platform ebay.
The question posed to the ECJ was to what extent ebay could benefit from the exemption of liability on account of"hosting".
"The ECJ first confirms that an online selling platform in principle offers an information society service
and therefore is covered by the E-commerce Directive. The ECJ argues that, in order to define whether such a service is also an intermediary service in the sense of Article 14 of the Directive,
one should not only look at the text of the Directive, but also at the intention of the legislator:"(
it is essential that the provider be an intermediary provider within the meaning intended by the legislature in the context of Section 4 of Chapter II of that directive (see Google France and Google, paragraph 112)".
or control over, those data (Google France and Google, paragraphs 114 and 120)"."Paragraph 113"(.
and provides general information to its customers cannot have the effect of denying it the exemptions from liability provided for by Directive 2000/31 (see, by analogy, Google France and Google, paragraph 116).
"Paragraphs 115 and 116) The ECJ suggested that Ebay would potentially in some instances not have such a neutral position:"
"In some cases, ebay also provides assistance intended to optimise or promote certain offers for sale"(paragraph 114). 3. 4. 3 The conditions in Article 12 to 14 ECD Articles 12 to 14 of the ECD contain a number of specific material
for instance, has a"general awareness"that its site hosts illegal information. The first interpretation is defended commonly by civil organisations in defence of, in particular the freedom of speech,
or activities on their sites and that this constitutes actual knowledge. ISPS that advertise the possibility of downloading music
because the website of the third party was almost identical to the website of the political party,
if internet users confused the two websites. 105 Also, defamation has been considered manifestly illegal in some instances. 106 By contrast,
A host of a website containing hyperlinks leading to to child pornography was attributed knowledge of these illegal hyperlinks
idpdf=F-20040203-3 36 Youtube LLC. 117 Some stakeholders, in particular intermediaries, therefore suggested that the Commission should propose a so-called"Good samaritan clause".
L'oréal vs. ebay (see also Chapters 3. 4. 2. 1 and 3. 4. 2. 2) the referring court referred the question of
=37 whether ebay was aware of facts and circumstances from which the illegal activity was apparent:
whether ebay provides such assistance but it already indicated that"in some cases"(without further specification) ebay does play such an active role.
The ECJ does not elaborate explicitly on how a hosting service provider can obtain"actual knowledge".
Google case. The AG claims to"have some difficulties"with the conclusion of the Court that recital 42 would contain conditions for all intermediary services for benefiting from a liability exemption
For instance, traffic management by internet providers (see Chapter 4. 3. 4 on net neutrality) could, according to some stakeholders, be interpreted as selecting
"and the ebay vs L'oréal case. 40 Apart from the E-commerce Directive, there are other pieces of European legislation relevant for NTD procedures.
http://ec. europa. eu/internal market/iprenforcement/docs/memorandum 04052011 en. pdf 133 The website www. chillingeffects. org, an initiative from several US law faculties and some NGOS
the review of such decisions, the tracking of its source and identification of the web hosting provider and, in particular, the notification to the competent authorities.
The German Access Impediment Act obliges the Federal office of Criminal Investigation to compile a black list containing child pornography websites, on the basis
of which ISPS have to block access to those websites; The Hungarian Act on certain aspects of e-commerce
they can be forced to block access to copyright-infringing websites; The UK Terrorism act provides a specific procedure for terrorism-related information;
Certain stakeholders also consider it socially undesirable that the takedown of manifestly illegal information (for instance child pornography) is sometimes less fast than the takedown of illegal information where there is a financial gain involved in the takedown (for instance phishing websites.
Some intermediaries specified that certain complainants refuse to use the NTD procedure proposed by a particular site
A report conducted by Cambridge University136 demonstrates that the average time before takedown of child pornography sites is much longer than the time before takedown of phishing sites. d) Liability for providing wrongful notices
Moreover, some intermediaries, in particular video-sharing sites, argue that right holders should favour"monetisation"over takedown."
and includes also"blocking"of websites. 47 procedures; the consequences of submitting wrong notices; the instruments for removing or disabling access to illegal content, etc.
The provision is silent about injunctions. 48 In the L'oréal vs. ebay case138 the European Court of Justice accepts, in principle, the compatibility of effective and proportionate injunctions against providers such as operators of online marketplaces.
138 Case C-324/09, L'oréal v ebay, judgment of 12 july 2011, par. 141, available at http://curia. europa. eu/juris/recherche. jsf?
In a case concerning Rolex, Ricardo and ebay, two online selling platforms, the Bundesgerichtshof142 (the German Federal Supreme court) considered that an injunction against the two intermediaries forcing them to apply filtering software would not be infringing Article 15.
In France, in a ruling of 13 may 2009 in a case concerning ebay and L'oreal
143 the Court refused to oblige ebay to implement filtering software for its"health and beauty section"to prevent infringements of L'oréal's trademark.
The Court considered that filtering software was not necessary as ebay had made the required efforts to prevent trademark infringements,
Video hosting sites have, for instance, voluntarily and in cooperation with right holders, developed so-called fingerprinting techniques that identify the unique hash code of a file.
The fact that there is interoperability between these techniques for different video sharing sites would be a particular burden according to some right holders.
especially for retail websites. 145 See in particular the Commission Communication"A Digital Agenda for Europe",COM (2010) 245 of 19.5.2010, available at:
Information is collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made,
a user may often visit sport sites and thus be categorised in the"sports fan"segment.
makes illegal under Article 13 (4) all commercial e-mails advertising websites without disclosing the identity of the sender on
and their customers by taking legal action against spammers. 4. 1. 2. 3 Cookies and the eprivacy Directive Cookies are hidden information exchanged between an internet user and a web server,
and in particular the transformation of the Internet from web 1. 0 to web 2. 0 have been possible thanks to cookies.
and informed indication of the user's wishes, including by ticking a box when visiting an internet website".
"Access to specific website content may still be made conditional on the well-informed acceptance of cookies or similar device,
coupled with a website providing the user with information about how to switch off behaviourally targeted display ads from the company that the user signed up to.
and some 172 See the DG's website: http://ec. europa. eu/internal market/services/gambling en. htm 61 Member States prohibit the online sale of"over-the-counter"(OTC) medicines or medical devices.
This does not always stop them from buying medicines online, with the result that they, often unconsciously, buy from illegal sites, with all the attendant health risks.
for additional information requirements and the creation of an obligatory"trust mark"("common logo")for websites legally offering medicinal products on the Internet.
price comparison websites, restrictions on advertising, and unfair commercial practices should be tackled. 4. 2. 1 Price comparison websites As outlined in the Staff Working Document"Bringing e-commerce benefits to consumers"accompanying the Communication on e-commerce,
consumers are missing out from the full benefits of e-commerce, that is lower prices and a wider choice,
In 2010, eight in ten online shoppers used a price comparison website to research their purchases,
yet as was shown in a recent Mystery Shopping study of price comparison websites, only a low proportion of price comparison websites (17%)give customers the option of offers available from other Member States.
In addition, just 14%of tested price comparison websites are available in more than one language179. As a result, consumers often do not find out about cross-border offers.
The performance of the tested price comparison websites was substandard in many aspects when it came to the provision of information.
Only one in two price comparison websites provided the full details of their business address. The situation with online retailers was somewhat better,
with 67%of tested retailers providing a full business address. In 60%of tested price comparison websites, it was not clear
whether retailers had to pay to have listed their products and most price comparison websites did not display the correct final price.
Information provision on added costs was rather poor. Just 19%of price comparison websites showed prices including VAT and other taxes,
and delivery charges. Another worrying finding was that in more than half of trials, the cheapest price was not the first price displayed.
or service providers to create their own website in the hope that clients will find their business
and make a direct order online through their website. Second online businesses such as newspapers, video sharing sites,
and commercial blogs offer content and services to consumers for free, earning revenue by selling advertising space on their sites to businesses that intend to reach those customers.
Third, online enterprises such as travel planning sites sell both advertising space and their (own) services directly to consumers.
In all those business models, the use of search engines has become widespread. Customers rely increasingly on search engines to find their preferred product or service.
thus a crucial instrument for guaranteeing that any commercial information available on websites is fair
the web page www. isitfair. eu contains practical information for consumers on how to check if they have fallen victim to an unfair commercial practice,
joint surveillance actions("sweeps")have been carried out on the basis of UCP provisions (websites selling airlines tickets, online mobile phone services, websites selling consumer electronic goods;
and services by exploiting the global availability of their websites. However, most online traders still serve a very limited number of Member States.
Online buyers are confronted regularly with refusals of online web shops to deliver if they are not residing in the same Member State,
The most frequent cases concern web shops that either refuse to sell items or services to residents 187 http://ec. europa. eu/information society/eyouguide/navigation/index en. htm 188 European commission
It is not unusual that websites automatically route the consumer to another website which corresponds to their country of residence,
enabling the web shop to maintain different price policies based on national borders. Consumer transactions may also fail at the stage of revealing credit card details due to the address of the owner.
Globally operating internet companies therefore usually choose to have their country specific sites with a TLD of the country in question.
This principle is not always compatible with the practice of"traffic management"generally used by internet providers.
however, also be misused by internet providers to prevent access to information society services, in particular when they are competing with the services of the internet provider (such as telephony or television services).
This can be done either by blocking certain services outright or by making it very unattractive to access them,
The Commission Communication on the open Internet and net neutrality in Europe193 reports several instances of blocking of legal services (in particular of Voice-over-Internet-Protocol services by mobile internet providers),
on 20 november 2010 the Commission started investigations into Google following allegations of abuse of market dominance in the areas of online search,
Commission probes allegations of antitrust violations by Google, IP/10/1624,30. 1..2010, available at:
"For instance, a major application store would require from online press providers that their applications include an option to conclude commercial transactions within the application (instead of providing a link to a website where the commercial transaction is concluded),
and require quality standards for the use of an internet site to sell their products.
as they have to adapt their website to the legal requirements of every Member State they direct their activity to.
when a website contains activities directed to consumers in other Member States (see Chapter 4. 7. 4). The Common European Sales Law would contribute to the solution for the problems posed by the diversity of cross-border situations.
in the way sites can be referenced by search engines or how technologies can be slowed down or blocked.
traders and ADR schemes communicate during the whole procedure through a web-based system in order to resolve disputes.
or the websites of 41%of the courts visited. Consumers found it difficult to fill in the forms on their own
In the cases of Hotel Alpenhof and Peter Pammer302, the basic question at issue was whether the fact that the website of a business
the address being provided on the hotel's website which the consumer had viewed. The consumer found fault with the hotel's services and left without paying his bill.
The European Court of Justice ruled that mere use of a website by a trader
in order to facilitate access to its site by consumers domiciled in those various Member States. Nevertheless, other less obvious items of evidence,
Likewise, if the website permits consumers to use a language or a currency other than that generally used in the trader's Member State,
On the other hand, the mere mentioning on a website of the trader's email address or geographical address,
whether it is apparent from the traders'websites and overall activity that they were envisaging doing business with Austrian consumers (Case C-585/08)
(MNE (2003) 50827) http://www. vvc. gov. lv/export/sites/default/LV/publikacijas/civillikums. pdf 5. Informacijas sabiedribas pakalpojumu likums Legal act:
domain names, internet protocol addresses and destination addresses of the website-subject-matter of injury and description of facts substantiating infringement-data necessary for identification of infringement-name, address or head office,
including file name-copyright statement-date and time-IP ADDRESS, port number, website, protocol, or Unique infringement The ISP must be notified of the decision of the Section
-the law of 12 may 2010 contains in its Article 61 a basis for filtering of illegal gambling sites;
-the decree of 20 june 2009 lays down the basis for a public website for reporting cybercrime (notably child abuse content, financial crime and racist content
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011