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The purpose of this paper is to develop/elaborate the concept Privacy by Design (PbD) and to explore the validity of the PbD framework.

Attention for alternative concepts, such as PbD, which might offer surplus value in safeguarding privacy, is growing. Using PbD to design for privacy in ICT systems is still rather underexplored and requires substantial conceptual and empirical work to be done. The methodology includes conceptual analysis, empirical validation (focus groups and interviews) and technological testing (a technical demonstrator was build).

A holistic PbD approach can offer surplus value in better safeguarding of privacy without losing functional requirements. However, the implementation is not easily realised and confronted with several difficulties such as: potential lack of economic incentives, legacy systems, lack of adoption of trust of end‐users and consumers in PbD.

The article brings together/incorporates several contemporary insights on privacy protection and privacy by design and develops/presents a holistic framework for Privacy by Design framework consisting of five building blocks.

This article seeks to deal with the fundamental conceptual differences between consumer law and copyright law that render the application of consumer law to copyright‐law related conflicts difficult.

Following a normative approach to copyright and consumer law based on an analysis of the relevant literature and case law, the article examines in which situations consumers encounter obstacles when trying to rely on consumer law to invoke “privileges” granted to them under copyright law, such as the private copying exception.

Research shows that most difficulties lie in the fundamental conceptual differences between consumer law and copyright law regarding the objectives and beneficiaries of each regime, as well as diverging conceptions of “property”, “user rights” and “internal market”. Such discrepancies undeniably follow from the fact that each regime traditionally never had to deal with each other's concerns: consumers never played a role in copyright law, whereas copyright protected works were not seen as consumer goods.

By identifying the main conceptual differences between the two legal regimes, the article contributes in an inter‐disciplinary manner to the discussion on the place of the digital consumer under European law.

This article aims to investigate whether and how the application of European state aid rules to the public funding of public broadcasting organisations in Europe has advanced public broadcasting as a policy process and made it more adaptive to the challenges of the digital age.

The findings are based on a triangulation of literature study, document analysis and expert interviews (with over 50 stakeholders involved with the topic of state aid and public broadcasting).

The article consists of four main parts. Firstly, the issue of state aid and public broadcasting is contextualised within the heated discussions on the legitimacy of European intervention in a cultural policy domain such as broadcasting. Secondly, the analytical framework is presented. Thirdly, analysis of specific state aid cases follows. Finally, some conclusions and recommendations are outlined. The article concludes that European state aid policy has furthered a public service media project in the EU member states.

The article fills a void in current fragmented and often overly descriptive or overly ideological assessments of the relevance of state aid policy for public service broadcasting.

The paper contributes to ongoing policy debates about the issue of state aid policy for public service broadcasting.

The article fills a void in current fragmented and often overly descriptive or overly ideological assessments of the relevance of state aid policy for public service broadcasting.

This paper aims to address the recent trends and developments relating to the re‐use of public sector information (PSI) and open government data.

It starts from the European Commission's Digital Agenda, which stressed the importance of opening up access to content to promote the single market. While the 2003 PSI directive has contributed to this, barriers to the re‐use of PSI still remain, often based on a lack of awareness with public sector data holders and users. Some of these barriers are currently being challenged by the open government data (OGD) movement. While this movement has comparable objectives to the PSI directive, it is based on different arguments. This raises the question of how the two approaches relate.

The paper argues that the proponents of the re‐use of PSI and OGD should join forces to promote the availability of public sector data.

In this way, the public sector can be encouraged to rethink its information policy and move to a more coherent view on how data can be used to increase the benefits for the information society and the market for digital content.

The main objective of this paper is to assess how the degree of regulation that a company has to comply with affects its profitability. There is great variation within the internet value chain in the profitability of different players. The paper aims to analyse a large sample of companies that are leaders in different internet‐based businesses (network operators, search engines and other ASP, software, electronic retailing, content delivery networks, device manufacturers …). The paper's hypothesis is that regulation plays an important role in the profitability of a company and therefore also in how the market values them.

The methodology used to check the authors' hypothesis includes the following steps: identify leaders in the internet space; identify their core asset and group them according to it; calculate their profitability across a series of dimensions, with focus on return on fixed assets (ROFA); assess the degree of regulation of each group; and assess the statistical relationship between regulation and profitability and look for significant results.

The paper analyses the degree of regulation of the core asset of these companies and finds that is statistically related to their profitability. Companies with core assets free from regulation yield much higher profits on their investments than those with core assets curtailed by regulation.

This finding can cast light on some policy proposals under debate (net neutrality, access regulation, privacy …), especially how they can increase or decrease the current imbalance in the relative profitability of companies and the internet balance of payments and power between the European Union and the USA.

International benchmarking is increasingly used to inform information and communications policy. The paper aims to discuss the conditions under which learning from the experience in other jurisdictions (communities, nations, and super‐national regions) is possible.

Research from different disciplines is reviewed and synthesized to provide an integrated conceptual framework that can be used to design more robust international benchmarking approaches.

Drawing lessons from the policy experience in other jurisdictions is more difficult than is commonly perceived. Nonetheless, as long as the conditions for policy learning are met and it is properly done, international comparisons yield valuable data that can be used to improve the design of information and communications policy.

In conducting internationally comparative inquiries, researchers need to ascertain that the prerequisites of the methods employed are aligned with the structure of the problems that are investigated. Each method (e.g. qualitative, qualitative comparative analysis, panel data) has strengths and weaknesses and may not be an appropriate tool. Given these concerns, methodological pluralism and regular attempts to triangulate findings with other methods would be desirable.

Policymakers should resist the temptation to search for “best practice” approaches elsewhere and to imitate them. Successful policy approaches, while learning from abroad, need to be adapted to, and attuned with, local conditions.

The paper provides a timely discussion of the intricacies of benchmarking to improve policy decisions. It cautions against blind‐faith reliance on best practice models and encourages policy diversity as a way to facilitate continuous learning.

Video distribution over the internet leads to heated net‐neutrality related debates between network operators and over‐the‐top application providers. The purpose of this paper is to analyze this debate from a new perspective that takes into account all of the assets that companies try to exploit in the so‐called battle for eyeballs in video distribution.

The systematic value chain analysis is used to determine the points along the value chain where net neutrality interacts with video distribution. The inputs to the analysis are the existing and proposed policy measures for net neutrality in Europe and in the USA, and a number of net neutrality incidents that have led to discussions earlier.

The paper finds that the current and proposed policy measures aimed at net neutrality each contribute to a certain extent to their intended effects. However, the analysis also shows that they are likely to lead to new debates in other parts of the value chain, as players try to compensate the loss of influence or revenue streams by rearranging the ways in which they exploit their assets.

Further and new debates are expected in the areas of peering and interconnection, distribution of resources between over‐the‐top and managed services and the role of devices with tightly linked search engines, recommendation systems and app stores.

The new perspectives offered by our value‐chain based analysis are valuable for policy makers who aim to promote net neutrality and simultaneously stimulate competition and innovation throughout the value chain.