119 mln euros for French nanotechnology aid

The European Commission said on Thursday it had approved 119 million euros ($165 million) of French government aid to companies for research on nanotechnology and energy efficiency.

The Commission, executive arm of the European Union, signed off on 80 million euros for a programme known as NanoSmart and 39 million euros for an energy programme called Homes.

"The two programmes are in the strategic areas of nanotechnology and energy efficiency. The Commission has verified that the positive effects of the aid for consumers and for European research outweigh any distortion of competition," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.

NanoSmart aims to improve the performance and electricity consumption of microelectronic and optoelectronic components, the Commission said.

Homes will enable energy savings of around 20 percent in buildings through innovations including electricity distribution systems, the Commission said.

Deatail:

The European Commission has authorised state aid worth EUR119 million that the French government intends to provide to two research and development (R&D) projects.

Earlier this year the French Industrial Innovation Agency informed the Commission of its plans to grant €80 million to the NanoSmart programme, and €39 million to the HOMES programme. Under the Commission's state aid rules regarding research and innovation, Member States are obliged to notify the Commission of any aid measures worth over €10 million that are earmarked for projects focused on industrial research.

The new rules on state aid for research were announced in November 2006 and are designed to boost R&D spending and help Europe reach the goal of spending 3% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on R&D by 2010. Under the rules, countries may grant aid for R&D as long as it addresses a defined market failure, has an incentive effect and does not excessively distort competition.

'The two programmes are in the strategic areas of nanotechnology and energy efficiency,' said European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. 'The Commission has verified that the positive effects of the aid for consumers and for European research outweigh any distortion of competition.'

The NanoSmart project aims to improve the performance and electricity consumption of microelectronic components by developing advanced new supports with improved properties and functionalities. The total cost of the programme is €200 million spread over five years.

The goal of the HOMES project is to generate energy savings of around 20% in buildings by using active energy control. The project will see all the functions which contribute to the energy efficiency of a building (heating, air conditioning, lighting etc) integrated into the same architecture. HOMES has a total cost of €87 million, spread over six years.

For more information on state aid, please visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/state_aid/reform/reform.cfm

Technorati : nanotechnology

International Privacy Standard proposed by Google

This seems to me like it will be good for global businesses as a universal standard will allow a more streamlined approach to how to handle individual data.The world's largest Internet search company wants to create new ways to help keep Internet users safe.

Search giant Google Inc. will propose on Friday that governments and technology companies create a transnational privacy policy to address growing concerns over how personal data is handled across the Internet.

Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, will make the proposal at a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Strasbourg, France, dealing with the intersection of technology with human rights and ethics.

Fleischer's 30-minute presentation will advocate that regulators, international organizations and private companies increase dialog on privacy issues with a goal to create a unified standard.

Google envisions the policy to be a product of self-regulation by companies, improved laws and possible new ones, according to a Google spokesman based in London.

"We don't want to be prescriptive about who does that and what those standards are because it should be a collaborative effort," the spokesman said.

Other organizations have already made progress on privacy standards, he said. For example, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) created a nine-point Privacy Framework designed to aid countries without existing policies.

Google today proposed that governments and technology companies need to work together to create an international method that details how the personal information of users should be handled on the Internet. Google's Peter Fleischer, chief privacy officer, challenged members of the United Nations to help make sure user privacy remains safe.

"People look to us to show some leadership and be constructive," Fleischer said before speaking before the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. "By supporting global privacy standards, there will be a debate and part of that debate will be what are motives our."

A large problem is that privacy standards can vary greatly among countries, something that can cause issues for companies that operate in many countries. Along with not having a federal privacy law to protect consumers, laws in the United States often vary state-by-state: another roadblock that will likely need to be fixed.

Another problem facing companies such as Google is that many of the laws are extremely out of date when compared to how the Internet has progressed. An Internet law created by lawmakers just 10 years ago cannot fairly be used today.

"Privacy laws have not kept up with the reality of the internet and technology, where we have vast amounts of information and every time a credit card is used online, the data on it can move across six or seven countries in a matter of minutes," Fleischer said.

Assuming that data is passed through a small handful of information in a short amount of time, companies need to create a safeguard to make sure the data remains safe -- especially since a lot of nations have minimal data protection laws, Fleischer added.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) recently created a privacy framework that organizers hope will help nations modify existing laws that deal with user privacy and protection. However, much work must be done due to legal gray areas and loose translation of the privacy framework - for example, general principles are highlighted, but nations are responsible for their own enforcement.

Google already has spoken with Yahoo! and Microsoft over privacy standards, and now plans to speak with regulators from a number of different nations.

At a time when Google is worried about government regulation and laws over privacy, critics of the search engine company claim its recent acquisition of DoubleClick Inc are concerned Google now has the ability to store too much user data. Due to rising pressure from European officials, Google agreed to hold cookies up to two years only - the company originally scheduled cookies to be deleted in 2038.

Some other privacy standard

The P3P standard

The P3P specification has a double nature. On the one hand it is standardizing technical issues to facilitate the exchange of privacy meta information. On the other hand it requires the website to provide certain information necessary to enable the user of do-it-yourself privacy protection (e.g. the entity processing the data, types of collected data, purpose of collection and the type of processing). Requiring this information P3P sets a (minimum) privacy standard.

By offering a P3P policy, websites are giving a binding promise to their users that they will follow the P3P standard as a whole. It is part of the promise to provide the information required by the P3P specification truly and comprehensively. It also includes a careful interpretation according to the P3P specification of what personal identifiable data actually is. All things considered using P3P means agreeing on a legally binding (minimum) privacy standard between the parties.

Legal Privacy Standard

Some countries have their own data protection laws requiring i.e. special user information or allowing data use for special purposes only. These legal privacy standards are especially within European Union member states higher than the P3P specification's requirements (e.g. which information has to be provided in the P3P policy).

The relations between the P3P privacy standard, other legal privacy standards and the parties involved are illustrated in the following chart.

Technorati : International Privacy Standard

700MHz open-access conditions sued by Verizon

US FCC auction of a thousand wireless licences for the 700MHz frequency after Verizon Wireless has challenged the rules of the game.

The FCC has attached open-access requirements to a 22 megahertz block of spectrum for the auction in mid-January.

Most of the mobile phone industry hated the idea of attaching conditions to any of the 700 MHz spectrum, but AT&T liked it.

Winning bidders of the 22 MHz worth of licenses are allowed to use any devices and application on their networks, as long as they don't harm the rest of the spectrum. Fighting against the FCC is legally messy and will take ages. Verizon suing will mean that the auction could be delayed for years.

Verizon claims FCC action "violates the US Constitution, violates the Administrative Procedures Act … and is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the substantial evidence and otherwise contrary to law."

The move might create a backlash against Verizon. Lawyers approached by RCR News said that the rules were designed to allow consumers, for the first time, to use their handsets with any network they desire, and download and use the lawful software applications of their choice.

People might get miffed that Verizon is using the court system to try to prevent consumers from having any choice of innovative services