Russia/Ukraine conflict
Google stops short of ban in Russia
…However, Google has put an end to Russia state backed media from monetising ads, via apps and YouTube, and YouTube have stopped recommending videos coming from such media. Adtech is also no longer available to Russia.
Twitter, TikTok, Facebook are also making similar moves.
Ukrainian prime minister seeks better internet coverage from Musk and is responded to
…[Space X’s] Starlink service is now active in Ukraine…more terminals en route came the Twitter reply (though when it would be, is not clear). It won the approval of proud mum Maye Musk.
Toyota shuts down all factories as major Japanese supplier is hit by cyberattack
…Japan is apparently a prominent supporter of Ukraine, which is speculated to be the reason why it has been targeted.
All is fair in love and war?
… Ukrainian women are finding a whole host of Russian soldiers appear as matches on Tinder. Some have given their military locations away…but then Russian soldiers were told to turn off their phones.
Supply chain disruptions expected to affect tech industry
…Who knew so much came from Russia and Ukraine?
Nickel – car batteries
Titanium – making aircrafts and aero-engines
Palladium – catalytic converters, electrodes, electronics such as semiconductors
Aluminium – electronics and devices
Platinum – catalytic converters
Iron
Neon – semiconductor production (used in lasers to etch on the silicon)
Krypton – semiconductor production
Electrical cables for cars – in fact VW has halted its factory as it is finding it difficult to source them.
Auto parts generally – because Auto parts manufacturers (eg. Bosch) have factories in Ukraine
PLUS the small issue of impact on oil and gas supply that is the blood supply of all industry.
Apps
Peloton rejuvenated with new CEO at the helm – raises possibility of opening up platform
…Ex-CTO of Spotify /Netflix and new CEO of Peloton Barry McCarthy considers shaking the business up by opening up an app store for others to plug into. This would help scaling up for sure and Peloton can take a page out of Apple’s book and start raking in some app-sales and increase subscription numbers by broadening out the offering. He is also thinking about changing the subscription model – rather than clients forking up a hefty upfront cost for the bikes, they may subscribe to the hardware+services for a set price per month that we see in many kinds of phone contracts.
Data
EU Commission publishes its proposed Data Act
…It’s an act to ensure data in the EU is exploited in the EU; big industrial data flowing out of smart devices – which are mostly to be fed into AI as training data, will be available for use by users and will remain in the EU. See further below, In the Spotlight section.
US DOJ puts in the spanner over UnitedHealth’s takeover bid of Change Healthcare
…What’s this about?
UnitedHealth: Major business in health, including Optum, a provider of health services and it also owns one of the largest health insurance business. The insurance business collaborates synergistically with Optum.
Change Healthcare: Healthcare insurance technology group. It provides software and services which are widely used, meaning it has access to data (eg payment details between healthcare services provider and insurance services) of competitor insurance companies.
DOJ has said that it will reduce competition in health insurance (which is huge in the US as they don’t have the national health service equivalent in the UK), and it will mean UnitedHealth with gain access to rivals’ data. The interesting point is that UnitedHealth is asserting that its acquisition would actually reduce costs for the consumers (meaning it can’t possibly be anti-competitive). However, Biden administration has proposed looking at competition law from a different lens – in terms of reduction of competition between the businesses – rather than short term financial harm to consumers.
California Consumer Privacy Act is similar to the EU
This law is interesting also in view of a case that is being prepared (or filed?) in the UK against Facebook (a claim about Facebook taking users’ valuable data and not giving users commensurate compensation). According to this Act,
- Taking of customer data needs to be coupled to financial incentive.
- Needs to justify the taking of data
- State what the financial incentive is to the customer
- Explanation as to how the price/financial incentive relates to the value of customer data, how it has been calculated, and this needs to be done in good faith
EU and US close to agreeing a data transfer mechanism
The mechanism will attempt to bridge EU Human Rights Law (protection of citizens’ data) VS US National Security Commitments. A couple of cases to bear in mind by way of background:
- Google Analytics: Held in breach of GDPR because it transfers European users’ personal data back to the US – US Cloud Act means US authorities can demand Google to turn over personal data – thus Austrian Data Protection Authority has held Google has not provided adequate protection to AT citizens’ data in breach of GDPR.
- Facebook: says it might have to withdraw from providing services in Europe because of the requirement not to transfer European users’ data to the US
Gaming
Enforcing sellers of cheat codes not as straightforward as you might think
…The US is seeing a lot of cheat code seller cases and UK has a couple too that I know of. However such cases can be tricky:
- If the cheat code seller is not a seller (eg. provided for free), can’t sue them for breach of contract
- Can’t identify them
- Can’t serve them with the court papers (located abroad)
- Can’t enforce judgment
- Can’t find assets to enforce against
There is also a shift in the objective of these suits – initially companies may have sued individuals to ward people off cheating. More recently, the game publishers have shifted to suing the software providers, to obtain damages.
IoT
New interoperability for Smartphone products – the Matter Standard
…Have you got an Amazon Echo, Google Ring, and an Apple TV? The Matter Standard is coming our way – the goal is to try and connect up our connected devices that originate from different manufacturers seamless. Standardised technology allows all businesses to build on top of things. If Amazon Echo and Google Ring were interconnected by use of the standards, for example, Google Ring can be programmed so that the user can speak to the courier service at the door through Amazon Echo. What standardisation does is to discourage the closed ecosystem which some manufacturers, notably Apple, tries to promote. It prevents lock in to any particular ecosystem.
Patents
Nokia branded phones banned in Germany
This follows loss by Nokia TM licensee HMD following audio codec Standard Essential Patent enforcement action by Fortress funded (ie: Masayoshi Son’s Softbank) VoiceAge EVS. HMD phones no longer deal with the EVS standard (ie: to minimise effects of injunction) but the phones will be reportedly worse in quality for streaming content rather than voice calls per se.
Satellites
FCC raises concern over Starlink’s many satellites
…Too many space debris, increased likelihood of collision and difficulty detecting catastrophic asteroid strike on earth, it says. May be Elon’s giant chopsticks would do the trick of taking out satellites.
Trade Secrets
US ex parte Rapid response measure included in the proposed SECRETS Act tries to deter theft of IP
…The aim is “to provide procedures for national security exclusion from the United States of articles or components of articles that contain, were produced using, benefit from, or use trade secrets misappropriated or acquired through improper means by a foreign agent or foreign instrumentality, and for other purposes”. This provision is not that different from Article 4(5) of the EU Trade Secrets Directive.
However where the US and EU parts ways is the new ex parte rapid procedure. Any filed complaint will be reviewed by an Interagency Committee on Trade Secrets (Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Homeland Security, Secretary of Commerce, Attorney General, IP Enforcement Coordinator, US Trade Representative) which can move to get the International Trade Commission to block imports of products including digital products.
Requires Congress support – but there is reported to be no reason why there will be no such support.
Taiwan approves the National Security Act making it crime to steal trade secrets and using critical national technologies (i.e. chip manufacturing) outside Taiwan
Special courts to be set up as cases are likely to involve top top secret information.
In the Spotlight
The EU Commission’s PROPOSED Data Act – Data of Europe, by Europeans, for the Europeans
This is major. What are the headlines?
- It is no way near set in stone (only a proposal) – but still needs to be taken seriously
- It is not about personal data though most data is mixed. In such an instance GDPR will prevail.
- Its aim is to unlock the value in data, facilitate more sharing, in preparation for IoT – if your connected car were to collect valuable data, who should own it? Who should be able to decide who can access to the data of your connected devices for aftermarket services such as repair?
- Insight/data inferred from data itself / content are out of scope.
- Governments are able to demand private companies to turn over data in exceptional circumstances like public emergencies
Why did the EU Commission feel the need to revise law in relation to data?
Simply because data (especially machine generated data) is concentrated by a few, and was felt under-utilised for the following reasons:
- Siloed data
- Poor metadata management
- Lack of interoperability
- Lack of data sharing practices
- Power unbalance between data holder and licensee leading to abusive practices
To stimulate EU’s digital economy, the Commission felt that measures had to be provisioned to facilitate fairness, remove barriers and increase competition, and encourage more data sharing.
Data Portability
- The proposed Act clarifies who can use IoT generated data – avoid lock-ins which may ensue if only OEMs could access that data and so explicitly allows users to use the data generated by them – subject to payment on Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory and transparent conditions by the third party seeking access to the data to the manufacturer (“access right”). The OEM’s ability to use data remains unaffected. Third party access to data cannot be prevented by assertion of Database Rights (because the conditions are not fulfilled under Database Rights law – not because there is an additional provision that apply to the Database Rights law).
- Need to remove barriers to switching so that users of cloud services can switch between different providers. Data transfer should include user’s metadata. Standard contractual clauses to be developed.
SMEs
- SMEs have no option but to accept data providers’ terms of data sharing. The Act aims to tackle unfair contract terms in relation to access and use where SME is involved – terms must pass an “unfairness test”. Model contractual terms to be developed. Only unfair terms are liable to be invalidated.
Flexible use of data
- Need to facilitate the ability to combine data from different sectors to ensure data is utilised fully thereby unlocking full value of data.
- But the proposed Act sets obligations in relation to liability for accessing, processing, sharing and storing data.
Protection of data from unlawful access by ex EEA governments
- Need to ensure data generated in Europe is not subject to unlawful access by non-EU/EEA governments (those without relevant international agreement) in the interests of human rights, national security, IP rights and trade secrets. [it seems to be at least as strict as the restrictions for personal data – if not more]
- But free flow of data within the internal market needs to be preserved.
Public Interest
- Where there is high public interest (emergency), private companies must provide relevant data (eg. adverse weather, floods, fires, cybersecurity incidents, pandemic). This provision is relatively wide.
Examples to illustrate what the proposed Data Act purports to do
- Suppose you own a Volkswagen. Owners of the car has the right to use the data recorded by the car – for example, to give the data to an independent repairer (who may be cheaper than Volkswagen repairer), or a non Volkswagen partnered car insurer to calculate premiums depending on your driving patterns.
- Owners of factories should be allowed to use the data generated by their machines to optimise operational cycles, detect faults, manage supply chain, including using machine learning processes. That data should be usable by new machineries, which may be made by a different manufacturer.