The presentation covers the most relevant legal issues arising from the usage of social media.

1. Webinar
Legal issues in social
media
Giulio Coraggio
DLA Piper Italy
giulio.coraggio@dlapiper.com
March 19, 2014

2. The European Framework
Areas with common rules
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 Advertising
 Data Protection
 E-Commerce

3. Advertising
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 EU Directives
 Unfair B2C Commercial Practices
 Misleading and Comparative Advertising
 Common principles
 Advertising is "unfair" if it distorts (or likely
to) consumers' behavior with regard to a
product
 Principle of transparency
 Differences across the EU
 Sanctions
 Enforcement procedures
 Different approach by authorities
 DLA Piper Prize Promotions Across the
World handbook

4. Data Protection
 EU Directives
 General Privacy Directive 95/46/EC
 E-Privacy Directive 2002/58
 Advertising strategies – Big Data!
 Segmented, behavioral & location based advertising
 Viral marketing
 New EU Privacy Regulation
 Applicable to foreign companies regardless of their
establishment (i.e. even if located outside the EU)
 Fines up to 2% of the annual worldwide turnover
 DLA Piper Data Protection Laws of the World
handbook
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5. E-Commerce
 E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC
 Who is liable for published contents?
 Fan pages, forum, video sharing sites etc.
 General non-monitoring obligation on ISPs
 but take down obligation upon knowledge or court order
 New Consumer Rights Directive
 Higher level of consumers' protections, transparency and
obligations on businesses
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6. ITALY – Advertising
 Procedure under unfair commercial practices and
misleading advertising regulations
 Competition Authority in charge of proceeding
 Fines up to € 5,000,000
 Recent disputes: Apple, Ryanair, Groupalia and Groupon
 Proceeding under advertising self-regulatory code
 Binding only on entities that signed the self-regulatory code
 most of ISP and TV associations signed it
 Much faster than the administrative procedure
 No fines but effective due to entities signatory of the code
 Issues with prize promotions on social media
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7. ITALY – Data Protection
 Stingent approach by Data Protection Authority
towards new technologies
 New guidelines on "social spam"
 Sanctions
 administrative fines up to € 300,000 that can be
quadrupled
 criminal sanctions
 Google Vividown dispute
 civil claims for damages
 Proactive approach against foreign entitites
 investigations on Skype and WhatsApp
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8. ITALY – Liability on the Internet
 Editors' strict liability regime extended to the Internet
 YouTube vs. RTI dispute
 Facebook fan page case
 TripAdvisor case
 Cases on forums and blogs
 Copyright: new enforcement procedure!
 Need to put internal procedures to comply
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9. The Future – Big Data will grow or shrink?
 New Technologies
 Wearable technologies
 Internet of Things
 More information to be shared and
possibly used for marketing
purposes
 Will regulators be able to find the
right balance between users'
protection and privacy regulations?
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10. Thank you!
Be careful what you say in social media, because no matter
what, we live in a hypersensitive society where people are just
looking for any reason to be offended and make a huge deal
about nothing (Unknown)
Giulio Coraggio
DLA Piper Italy
T +39 02 80 618 619
M +39 334 68 81 147
E giulio.coraggio@dlapiper.com
giulio.coraggio@dlapiper.comGiulio Coraggio - DLA Piper 10