... it could take another five years before the law is enforced - especially if the tobacco companies carry out their threat to legally challenge the ruling.

UK health minister Andrew Lansley believes plain packs would de-glamourize the habit and deter young people from taking up cigarette smoking.

The Tobacco Manufacturers Association, unsurprisingly, disagrees: "We do not believe any plans for plain packaging are based on sound public policy, nor any compelling evidence."

The International Advertising Association is likewise opposed to the legislation. In a letter to the EU, Erich Buxbaum, IAA  vice-president and area director for Europe, warns: "All brands are registered trademarks. This could lead into a vast legal process - companies will sue the EC. They pay a lot of money every year for their trademarks."

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Four charges have been laid against the US search titan:

1. That it has intentionally 'hurt' competing services.
    
2. It has lowered the “quality score” for sponsored links of competing vertical search services.
    
3. It has imposed exclusivity obligations on advertisers, preventing them from placing certain types of competing advertisements on their websites.
    
4. Restrictions have been imposed on the portability of online advert campaign data to competing online advertising platforms.

Google denies that it holds a dominant position in online search despite its massive market share, and insists it will vigorously defend the four charges.

Thanks to Google's legion of lawyers and the EC's bureaucratic machinery, the investigation is expected to extend over several centuries!
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Nonetheless, broadband speeds in Europe have risen sharply in only a year, suggest official EC figures.

According to EC research, in July this year 29% of broadband lines in Europe ran at speeds of at least 10 Mbps. By contrast in July 2009 only 15% of broadband lines were capable of achieving that speed.

Despite the higher rates, the Commission warned that much work is needed to meet Europe-wide targets on access and speed.

"Fast broadband is digital oxygen, essential for Europe's prosperity and well-being," said Neelie Kroes, commissioner for the digital agenda.

Leading the European bloc in terms of high-speed broadband links a are Denmark and the Netherlands - each boasting coverage to some 80% of households.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The draft European Commission rules - snappily titled A Comprehensive Approach on Personal Data Protection in the European Union - imply the imposition of an online "right to be forgotten."

Such a dispensation would confer on EU citizens a legal right to demand that websites permanently delete already submitted personal data. The proposed rules also mandate that users give explicit consent before companies can use or process their personal data in any way. The mercifully brief (20-page) document also condemns website operators' current privacy policies as "opaque".

States EU Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding: "The protection of personal data is a fundamental right. To guarantee this right, we need clear and consistent data-protection rules. We also need to bring our laws up to date with the challenges raised by new technologies and globalization."

The proposal recommends giving consumers the right to sue companies for privacy breaches and also proposes criminal penalties.

The Commission, the EU's executive branch, will submit the proposal as legislation next year. It will then be debated and amended by EU members and the European Parliament before becoming law.

In the interim, expect frenzied lobbying from all interested parties - plus loud howls of transatlantic indignation!

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The concordat may take a similar direction to moves in the US, where an icon on online ads tells users why they’re seeing them and how to opt out, under the CLEAR specifications released by the IAB and partner the Network Advertising Initiative.

According to IAB head of regulatory affairs Nick Stringer: "A pan-European website will be a starting point, giving more consumer control. 'Your Online Choices' will play an important role in letting consumers see where and why they get a cookie. We’re trying to get more companies to participate and sign up to the Good Practice Principles."

EU data protection regulators are reportedly arguing that current cookie usage does not meet the requirements of the ePrivacy directive due to come into force next year - this calls for ‘informed consent’ which means browsers set by default to reject cookies require users to go into the privacy settings and change their selection in order to accept an ad cookie.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... in that last week's vote by MEPs is unlikely to lead to new food labels before three to five years have elapsed.

In the meantime, the new rules "make it clear that [the EU] won't stand for people being misled by food packaging". Key nutritional information, including salt, fat and sugar content, will have to be displayed on the front of the pack.

Country of origin is another area where MEPs and the European Commission feel that food labels can be misleading. They cite, for instance, Danish bacon, which is sometimes labelled "UK produce" even though the pigs were reared in Denmark.

Arguments are raging over how much information to give consumers on pack fronts. Food industry lobbyists fear an excessive administrative burden.

Legibility is also a key issue, with the EC proposing a minimum 3-millimetre font size for pack labelling.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... “when you’re in opposition, all you have is a megaphone and the media in order to make your argument,” he admits. 

But whilst in pre-election megaphone mode, Hunt belaboured the BBC and the UK’s largest telco, attacking the former's pay and perks for top managers and claiming BT’s plans for a superfast broadband network were inadequate.

Faced with the realpolitik of government and personal accountability, however, Hunt has become sweet reasonableness personified, vowing that the BBC’s editorial independence will “never” be undermined by the Con-Lib government, and paying a public tribute to BT ceo Ian Livingston for outlining post-election plans to expand the company’s superfast broadband network.

Hunt argues that the “single most important thing” the BBC does is hold politicians to account. On the debit side, however, he posits that the BBC’s “financial power” (a £3.6 billion annual licence fee compulsorily levied on taxpayers) must be a “positive thing that helps boost plurality in the market, rather than something that inadvertently crowds it out”. He intends to encourage commercial competition within the BBC at national and local level.

Meantime, secretary Hunt's ministerial gofers are examining ways of scrapping ITV's “contract rights renewal” regulations that cap ad rates - a restriction imposed half-a-century ago when the company was the nation's sole commercial broadcaster.

Hunt is also sympathetic towards ITV's statutory obligation to produce regional news, and has tasked Nicholas Shott, head of UK investment banking at Lazard, to consider how a modernised regulatory framework could nurture a new generation of local TV stations.

The new secretary also intends to relax cross-media ownership rules, a move he believes will enable the creation across England of between 30-40 new media companies - formed by local newspapers, radio groups and new media entrepreneurs - which will supply ITV with local TV news programmes.

Hunt rules out a government subsidy for any of these idealistic goals given the need to cut public spending.

All pigs fuelled and ready for take-off, Sir!

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... pointing to the regulations that currently set strict terms on what radio and television companies are required to broadcast in exchange for their public licences, Hunt promised a new liberality for broadcasters.

“If we’re going to promote innovation we need to move away from the microregulation of the broadcasting sector, and that means the approach to radio licences, it means the approach to public service broadcasting.

“We have to move beyond a system where wise people at Ofcom - the regulatory communciations hydra concocted by the former government -  are defining precisely what people are seeing ]and hearing] to the nth degree.”

"The government," said Hunt, considered the need to ensure taste and decency to be as important as ever but “more broadly speaking we do want to allow media companies greater flexibility to develop models than they previously had”.

As to his superfast broadband promise, "£47 million would be spent on pilot broadband schemes in rural areas. Existing infrastructure owners such as BT, Virgin Media and utility companies would be put under intense pressure, including the use of legal force, to share their assets in an effort to ensure high-speed broadband reached all areas of the country.

Hunt assured his listeners of his determination to avoid a two-tier broadband population. Instead, he would use public funds to prime the pumps of industry in getting speeds of 50 mega bits per second and more to rural as well as urban areas.

But arguably the new government's greatest commitment to change lay in Hunt's revelation that he has appointed investment banker Nicholas Stott of Lazards to assess the viability of adopting local, city-based media models similar to those in the USA [a move more likely to prove of benefit to investment bankers than media companies!]

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

...  programme recommendations and seamlessly integrate with with Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft’s instant messaging service.

Insists Huggers:“This is about the BBC driving more traffic to the broader ecosystem of on-demand players out there. There is no sharing of technology going on.” Other new features include:

• A BBC ID which will allow greater personalisation based on what users have previously viewed, enabling them to save “bookmarks” of series or shows that they can quickly access from any PC or mobile.
   
• Improvements to live viewing of broadcast TV online, an activity that has undergone “big growth”; also enhanced video picture quality, which will auto-adjust to available broadband speed.
   
• A facility to search for shows across a wide variety of non-BBC websites - a move that would help to establish the iPlayer as the first place viewers visit to discover a wide range of long-form [as opposed to short-form YouTube-style] online video .
   
• Traffic redirection via searches and programme listings to ITVPlayer, Channel 4’s 4oD, Demand Five and Arqiva’s SeeSaw .

The BBC's hope is that these improvements will make iPlayer a more regular destination for viewers, as opposed to a site they visit only to watch a programme missed when originally aired.
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the two biggest specialist buying shops Aegis Group-owned Posterscope and WPP Group's Kinetic. Also under the OFT's magnifying glass will be the dominant outdoor media-owners JCDecaux, CBS Outdoor, Clear Channel International and Primesight.

Declares the OFT's senior director of infrastructure Heather Clayton: “The cost of all forms of advertising is reflected in the price consumers pay for goods and services.”

“This market study into outdoor advertising will take a look at whether the market works well in terms of offering firms and local authorities deals that are fair, competitive and transparent.”

According to the OFT, the sector has a “complex, multi-levelled structure” which is “highly concentrated at the levels of the specialist buyers and outdoor media owners”.

The probe will determine whether the current structure has distorted the market or prevented others from entering, with particular regard to commission payments between media owners and agencies, plus the contracts via which local authorities lease property to billboard operators.

Reveals a statement issued by the regulator: “The OFT understands that some contracts might contain clauses that prevent local authorities from dealing with other outdoor media owners or with advertisers directly. This may be to the detriment of local authorities and therefore the taxpayers that fund them.”
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.