European policy – information labs

August 27, 2026

Non, a Ban Is Not a Plan: France Struck Down the Ban, Meta Settled on Features

For some background music when reading this post, we encourage you to (re)discover Michel Polnareff’s “La poupée qui fait non”. France adopted its under-15 social media ban on 21 July 2026 but hit a major roadblock a few weeks before its prohibition was due to take effect. The Conseil constitutionnel censured the central provision of the ban on 14 August, and the reasoning for its “Non” travels far beyond France. While the court did accept...

Blog Post, digital rights, European policy, internet policy, technology

June 12, 2026

Did IMCO Forget That Consumer Protection Is in Its DNA?

The IMCO draft opinion on the Digital Networks Act (DNA), reported by Euractiv and circulated after a Politico leak, takes the Commission’s already-imperfect proposal and systematically worsens it on net neutrality across three dimensions simultaneously. The central move — making the conciliation mechanism mandatory — does what the Commission explicitly declined to do: it builds a structural pathway for network fees directly into EU telecoms law. In parallel, a joint statement signed by almost 40...

Blog Post, European policy, internet policy

June 4, 2026

From Buzzword to Blueprint? The EU Tech Sovereignty Package Has Landed

A year ago, we argued that digital sovereignty was Europe's favourite empty buzzword: elastic enough for everyone to project their fears onto, specific enough to satisfy no one. Yesterday, the European Commission adopted a package that tries, with notable seriousness, to prove that argument wrong. The Tech Sovereignty Package was postponed three times since March 2026. Those delays were themselves informative: reporting suggested that language around preferential treatment for European providers was carefully managed to...

artificial intelligence, Blog Post, European policy, internet policy

December 16, 2025

Brussels Effect 2.0: From Whistle to Workshop

For over a decade, the Brussels Effect has offered Europe a comforting narrative: that through the gravitational pull of its market, the EU shapes global practices in privacy, competition, and now artificial intelligence. Columbia professor Anu Bradford, who coined the term, argues that companies often “voluntarily extend EU rules to operations outside the EU” because complying separately would be too costly or inefficient. As Anu Bradford herself has recently emphasised, the Brussels Effect was never...

Blog Post, European policy, technology

July 16, 2025

The Missing Money Trail: Why Article 15’s Story Hides a Democratic Failure

When European policymakers championed Article 15 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DCDSM), they painted a compelling picture. Here was legislation that would finally make tech giants pay their fair share to news publishers, channeling millions into quality journalism and saving democratic media from the digital advertising apocalypse. The promise was simple: Google and Facebook would pay, publishers would prosper, and journalism would flourish. Five years later, we have a “success...

artificial intelligence, Blog Post, digital rights, European policy

July 9, 2025

#ProtectOurFutureMemory: Why Libraries Need Fair Contracts

information labs was proud to participate in the launch of the "Our Future Memory" campaign at LIBER 2025 in Lausanne, where library professionals, researchers, and policy advocates gathered to confront one of the most pressing challenges facing our digital knowledge ecosystem. The energy in that room was palpable: here were practitioners who had spent years wrestling with increasingly unfair digital licensing terms, thinking on how to bundle forces yet again for their digital survival,...

Blog Post, digital rights, European policy

June 25, 2025

Don’t Blindly Blame the Bots: How AI Is Helping Journalism

Let’s face it: artificial intelligence (AI) has become the punching bag of choice in parts of the Brussels bubble, particularly in press-related discussions. From public hearings to position papers, AI is regularly paraded around as the looming villain behind layoffs, eroded editorial integrity, and the presumed death of quality journalism. But step away from the microphone theatrics and peek inside actual newsrooms, and a very different story unfolds, a story far richer, more nuanced,...

artificial intelligence, Blog Post, European policy, Uncategorized

June 11, 2025

Copyright, Creativity, and Generative AI: The Research Sector’s Missing Seat at the Policy Table

There is a longstanding tendency in policy debates to narrowly interpret “creative industries” as shorthand for music, film, and the performing arts. This tradition certainly seemed respected in the 4 June workshop and hearing organised in the European Parliament JURI Committee on generative AI and copyright. That shorthand is not just misleading: it’s dangerous. It risks cementing laws and practices that privilege one subset of creativity while undermining another that is just as essential: scientific...

artificial intelligence, Blog Post, copyright, European policy

May 21, 2025

Network Neutrality Is Not a Given: Lessons from Germany for the EU’s Digital Future

The internet's open architecture has been a cornerstone of innovation and free expression. However, this foundation is increasingly challenged by proposals allowing large telecomoperators (telcos) to charge fees for data delivery, often framed as a "fair share" (aka “network fees”) contribution from large tech companies. A recent internet lab podcast interview with Thomas Lohninger from epicenter.works sheds light on a real-world example in Germany, highlighting why such models pose a significant threat not just...

Blog Post, digital rights, European policy, internet policy