In our new regular weekly round-up of news in Europe, here’s some of the broader stories that may be of interest.
• The European Union is never very far away from reaching for the regulation trigger, so it was refreshing this week to see that it was warning member states that people should not be criminalised for the file-sharing of copyrighted material if they are not profiting from doing so. I guess they’ve heard music is going free.
• Phorm, the “deep packet inspection” company which works with ISPs to target adverts, continued its PR woe in the UK where it has been having a torrid time trying to convince the press, government and consumers that it won’t be spying on everyone. It’s now hired a chief privacy officer to try and allay fears. In Europe we tend to be more concerned about private companies snooping on our privacy/data than governments, slightly the reverse of the general attitude in the States I believe.
• Google is rapidly becoming Britain’s biggest advertising business. It earned $803 million (about £407m) in the first three months of 2008, about 40% up on a year ago. By contrast the biggest TV broadcaster, ITV, had net advertising revenues of £1.5 billion. So Google is on track to beat it by the end of this year. In general the UK internet advertising market is at £2.8bn in 2007 up 38% on 2006.
• Everyone is expecting Finland’s Nokia to come up with an ‘iPhone killer’ with the rumoured “Tube” handset, but it had better hurry up. Nokia’s shares were hit after it said the market would shrink in value in euro terms this year for the first time.
• After the EU fined software giant Microsoft 899 million euro last February, things have cooled off a little. Until a question by EU Parliament representative about whether the EU’s legal findings against the company kicked off yet more headaches. Plus ca change!
• In the UK the head of the BBC’s new media department controls a budget of £400 million, so it’s of keen interest to everyone in the tech commmunity. The former Microsoft executive Erik Huggers is tipped to be the BBC’s new director of future media and technology, replacing Ashley Highfield, who is leaving to head the commercial web TV venture Project Kangaroo.
• The iPhone in Europe is a “patchy” success. So far it’s officially available in France, England, Germany, Austria, and Ireland. Demand has been strongest in England. French sales have been just okay. Germany, however, is cool on the Jesus phone. One third of the iPhones sold in Europe are unlocked after purchase.
They may also be being sold at a loss. And is Orange testing a 3G iPhone v2.0 with GPS in France? And maybe it’ll launch in Russia soon? I predict a lot of unlocking…. Luckily we’ll soon be able to use them on flights in Europe.
• And in other news TechCrunch UK is bringing 20 UK startups to ‘press the flesh’ in Silicon Valley this week. So at least were bringing a bit of Europe to you. Much easier!
guys – all of this is old news. we look to TechCrunch for insight…are you loosing when you have to start posting news round-ups?
Best round up yet
. Reminds me of the Economists opening pages about politics and business somerising the week gone by (I think i buy the magazine just for that as thats all i have time to read!), but this time about European tech.
Good luck, have fun in SF etc.
wow, so that’s europe.
It was indeed a good news roundup! So iphone is hit in Europe too!!
If you’re looking for (fresh – pun intended) news on Finnish startups, you should read Arctic Startup – http://www.arcticstartup.com
We’re looking to expand during this year, but at the moment we cover the Finnish online startup scene pretty well. We also organise some networking events every now and then.
It looks to me that something more is happening in europe other than uk, iphone and nokia.
But that may be just me, even if living in Europe.
For reference – as far as I am aware the iPhone is available in the whole of Britain, rather than just England. I don’t know if this is a factual inaccuracy, but it sort of confounds the stereotype we get here in the UK that americans don’t know that Britain is not just England, but Wales and Scotland too, and the UK includes Northern Ireland as well (Although not sure if the iPhone is available there).
@Siddharth: The iPhone a hit in Europe? You are joking/misunderstanding the article! The iPhone sold only 10% in those countries compared to the US and the mentioned countries have a market size of 219 Mio. people… – go figure. Perhaps you now understand why Nokia is always joking about the iPhone…
The iPhone is certainly available in Ireland, and I’m pretty sure Scotland as well. I reckon Mike was referring to ‘Britain’, not ‘England’.
This is more a “Great Britain news round-up” than a “European news round-up”.
So you wrote, “I guess they’ve heard music is going free”, and that isn’t really what is happening.
What the European Parliament said, which is the most important part of the recommendations, and is completely in alignment with what our courts and legislators state: “do what is necessary to enforce and protect literary and artistic property rights, especially in the digital environment”. Nice of you to completely overlook, or blatantly ignore that part of the article.
Music isn’t going free regardless of how many out of touch folks at TechCrunch think it is. I guess people at TC are starting to drink MA’s kool-aid.
let’s have an asian startup summary next week… cover the world
I agree with the irony.
EU is moving totally a few steps behind.
But spare some of your witty spirit. You still are the ‘tender foots’ of the neighborhood.
+The news about Techcrunch UK deserves to be in the ‘European Round-up” ??
+1 for Mark N’s comment re: Britain. Can’t believe Mike B could have written such a thing!
Hey everyone, apologies for referring to the UK as England. I half had it in mind that this would be easier to digest for our American readers, but I will stop patronising people and revert to UK/Britain. OK? We’re still working on what kind of “European” news (FYI the UK is part of Europe btw) everyone wants, so feel free to give us your feedback/criticisms/punches in the mouth etc etc
I am very much behind in European Union tech news, so I found this blog very useful and interesting. Keep up the good work and your excellence.
thanks
the biggest emerging story out of the phorm scandal is how the UK government is washing its hands of the illegal snooping (in contravention of the RIPA law) during the 2006 and 2007 trials that estimates have placed at nearly 100,000 people illegally “tapped” by BT and phorm.
Effectively, the UK government has given the OK for private companies to invade your privacy in order to make money out of you without your consent.
Great, the UK has officially turned into 1984 on steroids.
And still we are yet to see any real reporting going on outside of the fantastic work done on the register and a small amount on the guardian (who have ditched their agreement to use phorms OIX ad network in the process).
Three simple words on the phorm front: DO. NOT. WANT.
Oh, and the US has this nightmare already happening too: http://www.ther...l_ad_targeting/
Happy to see by the Europe map you have posted that you do not recognise Kosovo secession.
@19: Never mind that, TechCrunch hasn’t even recognised the separation of Serbia and Montenegro
cocoasm & Sam B – well spotted. I see if I can change the map…
I wonder how many mancunians will be peeved that leeds is shown as the next city of note in the uk. realistically that should be birmingham
still, interesting to note that conversation skips over the immense failure of the UK government to protect its citizens against the illegal actions of its primary telco and an upstart ad firm with a history of malware and rootkit provisioning, instead zoning straight in on the outdated map.
Not to be a troll or anything, but your map is wrong.. it might be pronounced ‘Doublin’ by some people but it’s not how to spell it..