4 July 2018 - Tomorrow, the whole European Parliament will vote on the new Copyright Directive. Two weeks ago, Parliament's "Legal Affairs" Committee has adopted a first text, forcing commercial platforms to actively block copyright-protected contents uploaded by their users. Tomorrow, Parliament must reject this text.

27 April 2018 - La Quadrature du Net signs with other European organizations a letter to Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to ask them to stand for strong, independent regulatory authorities. During the non-transparent trilogue1 that took place on Wednesday on the European electronic communications code, the Member States and some MEPs agreed on an article that could create ambiguities on the competences of the national regulatory authorities (NRAs), enabling other national authorities such as Governments to enforce Net neutrality rules.2 The lack of independence of the authorities that enforce, monitor and assess Net neutrality regulation3 will inevitably lower efficiency of the implementation and favour economic interests of oligopolistics telecom industries.

• 1. Negotiations behind closed doors carried on by delegates of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union.
• 2. The new draft is: "Under the scope of this Directive the national regulatory authority shall be responsible at least for the following tasks: (...) Assessing and monitoring closely market shaping and competition issues regarding open Internet access".
• 3. Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 laying down measures concerning open internet access

Paris, 12 march 2018 - As announced in November 2017, in the conclusions to the summary of its first ten years [FR], La Quadrature du Net has formally incorporated around thirty of its valued partners as members. Most of them long-term volunteers, these members joined the organisation at the beginning of January 2018, at the invitation of the office and its paid employees.

Paris, 19 February 2018 - Although admittedly our annual donation campaign did not reach its goal, thanks to our supporters we have managed to gather enough funding to pursue our work for another year. At the end of January, we had collected 220,758€ from individual donations, reaching 68% of our goal (320,000€). Our total budget for 2018 is estimated at 380,000€ and is presently covered 90% (of which 66% are from individual donations).1Thanks again to everyone who supporting us <3

• 1. This figure also includes the unspent part of last year’s individual donations still on hand when the campaign began on 14 November 2017.

Paris, 6 November 2017 — On 26 October, the European Parliament as a whole decided to end its debate about the future ePrivacy Regulation. Its position already adopted on 19 October by the leading Civil Liberties committee was thus confirmed. Now, governments of the Member States and representatives of the European Parliament will negotiate in order to find a compromise in form of a final text. Let's review the first step of legislation which has come to an end.

Paris, 18 December 2017 - La Quadrature du Net decided to extend its yearly support campaign started on November 14th. As a matter of fact, the intended goal of 320 000 euros to pay for the year 2018 is far from being achieved: thus far, we've reached 50% of the funds needed. To help us defending human rights in the digital age, support La Quadrature du Net : donate and share !

Paris, 14 November 2017 — At a time when attacks on our rights and freedoms on the Internet come stronger and stronger, and the debates we have to conduct are ever more complex and numerous, we more than ever all need tools to understand, communicate and act on our fundamental rights, a freer Internet, and greater respect for our privacy. We need tools like La Quadrature du Net.

Paris, 6 November 2017 – In 2016, the Création law established a new right to use the image of national estates, such as the Chambord castle, the Louvre or the Élysée palaces. This provision allows their administrators to control the commercial use of images of these emblematic buildings and to demand license fees for those images. Considering how this measure threatens our legitimate rights to use our cultural heritage, Wikimedia France and La Quadrature du Net have attacked the implementing decrees applying this law, and raised a Question prioritaire de Constitutionnalité (priority constitutionality question)1. In a decision dated 25 October 20172, the Council of State accepted to transfer the matter to the Constitutional Council, considering the demand to be founded on new and serious grounds.

• 1. A French-specific procedure, the only possibility to challenge the constitutionality of a law is to ask the French Council of State (Conseil d'État, the French supreme administrative court) to accept the procedure and pass it on to the Constitutional Council (Conseil constitutionnel).
• 2. Décision du Conseil d'État n°411055 du 25 octobre 2017.

3 October 2017 - In March, more than 31 European Community Networks (CNs) wrote an open letter to EU policy-makers, stressing the need for an adaptation of the European legal framework aimed at helping these citizen-driven initiatives flourish, thus supporting alternative, democratic and sustainable ways to meet the goals of broadband policies. But rather than opening the door to a much-needed diversification of the telecom ecosystem, European governments only seek to reinforce the dominant positions of incumbent players. As the EU gets closer to a deal over the future of European telecom regulation, the EU Parliament must resist the pressure and reaffirm its commitment to the public interest.

Paris, 25 September 2017 - Last Thursday, the French Ministry of Interior ordered two Indymedia websites, one in Nantes and the other in Grenoble, to take down an anonymous tract claiming responsibility for fire arson in a police hangar the previous night. According to the government, the hosted text constitutes a "provocation to terrorism". The two Indymedia sites decided to take down the litigious content, in order to avoid being put on the secret blocking list sent by the government to major ISPs in France to censor websites. While the text has also been relayed on the websites of traditional news outlets, the latter have apparently not been subject to the government's takedown request.

Paris, 11 July 2017 - The last discussions on the draft on the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) before the summer break will take place today and we can only hope for very few changes before the vote on 11 September. The current trend is catastrophic: Pilar del Castillo, the main rapporteur known for her ties with large telcos, is leading to a world of monopolies were very few telcos (3 or 4, she may hope!) would share the whole EU market on optic fiber and radio spectrum. Very few latitude will be allowed to the national regulatory authorities (NRAs) to regulate the market and ensure that the core values also promoted by the European Union will be protected.

Paris, 14 june 2017 — For some time, political authorities are trying to question the technical and legal protections guaranteed by encryption tools. To oppose these dangerous proposals, the Observatoire des Libertés et du Numérique (Freedoms and Digital Observatory)1 publishes its position on the defence of the right to encryption, a tool indispensable to protect freedoms in the digital age.

• 1. The Observatoire des Libertés et du Numérique includes: Amnesty International France, the Cecil, Creis-Terminal, the Human Rights League, the Syndicat de la magistrature, the Syndicat des Avocats de France and La Quadrature du Net.

Paris, 7 June 2017 — The future of the decentralised nature of the Internet is at stake with the negotiations on the European Electronic Communications Code. La Quadrature du Net publishes its first voting lists on amendments that have been tabled in committees1 and refers to the factsheets (pdf) drafted by netCommons. As anticipated, the lobbying of the telcos has been very useful with many amendments - especially from the right wing - that aim to protect oligopolistic positions of major telcos, undermining any attempt of openess for new actors and rights of users.

• 1. ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) is the committee responsible for the text and IMCO (Internal market and consumer protection) is the associated committee. See also the procedure file on the European Parliament's website.

Paris, 1 June 2017 — On the first anniversary of the adoption of the EU regulation on the Open Internet which governs the aspects of Net neutrality, and as the ARCEP (French Telco regulator) publishes its first report on the state of the Internet, we paint a dark picture of its implementation in France and within the EU.

Paris, 22 May 2017 — As the EU Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission enter the dark rooms of trialogues on the WIFI4EU draft regulation, European community networks and the open-wifi community wanted to remind them of the importance of the inclusion of all actors in the development of local connectivity.