Brussels, 3 July 2009.

The undersigned associations, representing the digital media and advertising industries in Europe, welcome the self-regulatory initiative for online behavioral advertising announced yesterday by a coalition of U.S. industry organisations comprising the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Together with ongoing efforts of leading advertising companies and sectors in several markets, the U.S. self-regulatory initiative will help inform discussions and complement initiatives on online behavioural advertising currently taking place in Europe. We are working closely with our sister trade associations in the U.S., as well as those in other markets, to ensure a coherent industry approach to an issue that is by its very nature global.  We take seriously our shared responsibility with regard to online data protection and consumer privacy and are committed to explore sustainable solutions to facilitate the development of the online advertising market, to the mutual benefit of both the consumer and business.  The fair information principles, particularly transparency and control, which are at the heart this initiative and bedrocks of the European privacy framework, will be key to ensuring that consumers are aware of and have meaningful choices regarding online behavioural advertising practices. We recognise that any European initiative will necessarily need to reflect the specific European legal context, which differs from that in the U.S. 

EADP President Kimberli Lewis, together with the other  presidents and representatives of the five European publishing associations (EADP, ENPA, EPC, FAEP and FEP) had a very constructive lunch with Commissioner Reding on 18^th December in Brussels. Commissioner Reding evoked the various issues facing publishers such as advertising, copyright, digital librairies and SMEs simplification and she insisted on the importance of the sector. The debate then went on during the lunch on digital librairies, copyright and data privacy.  

The report from MEP Busuttil on misleading directories was debated in the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 15 December 2008 and has been unanimously adopted by MEPs on 16 December 2008. Mr Busuttil presented its report and its major points which put the spotlight on the existing scams and their financial and psychological impact which is very bad for SMEs. He hopes that the adoption of the report will send a strong message to misleading directory publishers to show them that the EU is caring about the problem. The report asks the Commission to step up the monitoring of the transposition of the misleading advertising directive and the unfair commercial practices directive to ensure they are transposed in a correct way. It also calls for an enhanced cooperation between national enforcement authorities to cooperate in order to stop the scammers.

The European Parliament unanimously adopted the report from MEP Prets on media literacy during its Strasbourg session on 16 December 2008.  This report proposes a horizontal definition of media literacy and puts the emphasis on the critical skills which are necessary for media users to be media literate.  The Commission supported this report and will propose amended actions on the med

How will the print media evolve in times of increasing Internet use, enhanced cross-media competition, the emergence of “publications for free” and an apparent reduction of interest of the younger generation in newspapers and magazines? These topics were on the agenda of a high-level-meeting in Brussels on 23 October between Media Commissioner Viviane Reding and the editors-in-chief of Helsingin Sanomat (Finland), Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), La Stampa (Italy), Luxemburger Wort  (Luxembourg), Polityka (Poland), Diario de Noticias and Expresso (Portugal) and The Times (United Kingdom). Following a first meeting in autumn 2005, this is now the second time such a high-level dialogue between the written press and the European Commission is taking place.

On 7 July 2006, the European Commission announced the opening of five new cases of proceedings against possible infringements of EU telecoms rules. Four of these cases concern the non-conformity of national "must-carry" rules with the EU "Universal Service" Directive in Belgium (Wallonia and Brussels), the Netherlands and Finland. The other case concern the failure to grant “rights of way” in Cyprus, which has prevented new entrants from being able to offer their services in competition with the incumbent. In all these cases, the Member States will receive a letter of formal notice and will have two months to reply.

On April 26th, the European Commission adopted an Amended Proposal for a Directive to combat intellectual property (IP) offences. Following a decision by the European Court of Justice stating that criminal law provisions necessary for the effective implementation of Community law fall within the scope of the EC Treaty, this Amended proposal combines two former proposals of a Directive and a Framework Decision on this subject matter into one instrument.

The Amended Proposal covers all categories of infringements of IPR. It aims to harmonise Member States' criminal legislation on questions such as which acts are considered punishable and what are the minimum penalties and fines to be imposed on the commission of those acts. Special attention is paid to acts of counterfeiting and piracy committed by criminal organisations. Finally, the Amended Proposal establishes the means to improve cooperation among Member States' authorities to combat these acts.

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The European Commission published on 22 February 2006 the 11th report on the implementation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Package.

Regarding directory services, the report stresses the concern of the Commission that a comprehensive directory is not provided in several countries (Czech Republic, Greece, France, Cyprus, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and United Kingdom).

During the review of the regulatory framawork, the Commission will also examine the issue of high costs faced by directory publishers when accessing to comprehensive data from operators.

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