The Financial Times reported that the recommendation from the Article 29 Working Party (sounds socialist…) is the first step in drafting legislation on mobile location data and could be added to the EU’s e-Privacy Directive, which is supposed to make cookies crumble across Europe come May 25 even if no country within the union is prepared to implement the law.

In addition to stringent rules on how location data is collected and stored, the panel recommended that any and every location-based service — whether offered by the OS, telecom or app-maker — be required to first ask permission from the user to employ such location data. This would also require a long explanation about what exactly the data will and could be used for.

“Since smartphones and tablet computers are inextricably linked to their owner, the movement patterns of the devices provide a very intimate insight into the private life of the owners,” the panel wrote. “One of the great risks is that the owners are unaware they transmit their location, and to whom.”

Industry players are making the age-old argument that this is a hassle and will hinder development, but the opt-in element sounds pretty reasonable, and somewhat akin to what Google currently provides on its Android OS. Basically location-based services would provide users with a long and winding agreement about location data-sharing before letting them use the service. And like user agreements for most software, the majority of consumers would (sorta) skim it and hit “agree.”

By the way, I think iTunes has claimed rights on my firstborn — suckers. You go deal with the little brat, Steve Jobs.

Going into effect May 25, the latest European e-Privacy Directive requires publishers in European Union member states to seek consent from users before using any kind of tracking technology. If you’re going to drop a cookie, even for internal analytics, the user has got to know about it. Certain cookies will be forbidden, such as those that log items browsers have added to online shopping baskets.

Previously, the e-Privacy Directive required users to offer opt-out options (“the right to refuse” tracking instruments) but this new “opt in” method has been adopted to present more transparency and user control. The worst case scenario Internet companies are fearing is having to serve a pop-up box explaining every little cookie.

It sounds pretty Draconian — Mike Butcher writes on Tech Crunch Europe that such a move would kill the European tech startup industry and give companies from countries outside the EU (specifically, the United States) a bigger advantage over European outfits than they already have.

Privacy International’s Alex Hanff calls that balderdash. “There are very few big players in this industry and it is nonsense that users will be having to click on multiple consent forms,” he told the BBC.

However, European governments may not have the ability to enforce such a drastic measure, especially not so soon. The BBC reports that not a single European government has a plan to enforce the directive.  The U.K.’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport straight-up admits technical solutions will not be ready for action until May 25

In addition, the article suggests the U.K. government’s enforcement arm, the Information Commissioner’s Office, will not be applying a heavy hand to offenders.

“[T]he internet as we know it today would be impossible without the use of cookies,” the department said in a statement. “So it is important that this provision is not implemented in a way which would damage the experience of UK web users or place a burden on UK or EU companies that use the web.”

Federal and regional German officials, on the other hand, appear to be close to saying Google Analytics is illegal in Deutschland. These authorities argue that the program violates national regulations regarding data protection an are threatening fines as high as 50,000 euros for German sites that use Analytics to track users who have not consented.

However, Google Germany’s Per Meyerdierks snapped back that Google is well in its rights to process user data — in the U.S., that is. The company respects and is protected by the EU-U.S. safe harbor treaty.

Looks like that storm cloud got a little heavier, but it’s still not bursting…

Compliments of The European Parliament

The new probe comes after the decision made in the fall of last year by the EU that the company must not tie the products together to ensure competition, was reached.

One of the complaints that encouraged an investigation, which was previously reported on, was made by Opera, a Norwegian web browser maker.

Another was brought on by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, which claimed that Microsoft did not disclose enough interoperability information for many products, the report continues.

The Commission was quoted to say “This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of an infringement. It only signifies that the Commission will further investigate the case as a matter of priority.”

Apple will cut prices within the next six months as “the direct result of talks that have taken place between Steve Jobs and (European Competition Commissioner) Neelie Kroes,” spokesman Jonathan Todd was quoted to say.

The parent of iTunes has said it has had to pay some music companies more for content in Britain and said it would consider not continuing the relationships with companies that don’t lower wholesale prices in Britain. Analyst Jonathan Arber said to Reuters “This is likely to further damage Apple’s already fractious relationship with the major labels…”

British consumers have complained that iTunes stores in France and Germany charge 99 euro cents ($1.45) a download but British users pay 79 pence ($1.56).

Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms Commissioner said in a statement that “Europe’s content sector is suffering under its regulatory fragmentation, under its lack of clear, consumer-friendly rules for accessing copyright-protected online content and serious disagreements between stakeholders about fundamental issues such as levies and private copying.”

EICTA, a European technology industry association, questioned if the EU not going directly to legislation is the correct tactic. EICTA director General Mark MacGann said to Reuters “It means you are not going to see any really meaningful changes for consumers for at least a couple of years. It may be too little, too late.”

The EU market for online content is anticipated to increase from 1.8 billion euros in 2005, to 8.3 billion in 2010 the report continues. The areas which will be addressed include multi-territory copyright licenses, piracy of content, interoperability of DRMs and illegal downloads.

The FTC decided in a 4-1 vote that the investigation of the deal could end, finding that the deal would not compromise competition, according to Reuters. The process of purchasing DoubleClick has been an eight-month ordeal for Google.

“The Google/DoubleClick merger would harm consumer welfare by creating a structure that almost certainly will be less respectful of user privacy,” BEUC said in a letter to the European Commission this week.

Last month, the European Union’s executive European Commission — the bloc’s top competition watchdog — opened an in-depth probe into the proposed takeover, saying it would raise competition concerns in online advertising.

Google, which uses consumer queries to choose advertisements which appear on Web surfers’ screens, wants to buy DoubleClick to increase its clout in tailoring advertisements to consumer activities.

“Post merger, Google will have the ability and incentive to engage in significantly more intrusive user tracking and profiling than exists today,” BEUC said.

The lobby group also said that the merger would place the online advertising market in jeopardy because the combined company will dominate both major “pipelines” for online advertising — for search ads and non-search ads.

“There are many ways in which Google, post-merger, could push up prices for advertisers,” BEUC said.

The higher prices for advertisements would likely be passed on to consumers, the lobby group said.

The Commission has until April 2, to take a final decision on whether the proposed transaction would significantly impede effective competition.

Compliments of Reuters

“We are pleased to confirm that the United States has reached agreement … with Canada, the EU and Japan,” Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, said in a statement several hours after the EU had announced details of the deal it had reached with Washington.

The decision is a disappointment for European online gambling companies who hoped a case brought by Antigua several years ago at the World Trade Organization gave them a foothold to get back in the U.S. market after being kicked out by Congress last year.

In an April 2005 victory for Antigua, the WTO said a U.S. law allowing only domestic companies to provide horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign firms.

But rather than open up the U.S. online horse-race gambling market, Congress tightened restrictions on other forms of Internet gambling last year by making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The Bush administration also announced in May that it was retroactively excluding gambling and betting services from market-opening commitments it made as part of the 1994 world trade agreement, saying that U.S. trade negotiators had made a mistake by not expressly excluding them at the time.

That opened the door for the European Union and other trading partners to seek compensation from the United States in the form of increased access to another U.S. service market.

Hamel said the deal reached with the EU, Japan and Canada “involves commitments to maintain our liberalized markets for warehousing services, technical testing services, research and development services and postal services relating to outbound international letters.”

European gambling companies had argued the EU was entitled to as much as $100 billion in compensation for being denied access to the U.S. market. But EU officials never publicly embraced that amount and U.S. official called it an exaggerated figure.

Hamel declined to say on Monday how much the deal was worth. “We’re not going to get into that,” she said.

Doug Palmer is a reporter for Reuters

Compliments of Reuters