Category: Business

It’s a big year for the oozing creep of corporate paternalism and ad-tracking technology online. Google and its subsidiary companies have tightened their grips on the throat of internet innovation, all while employing the now familiar tactic of marketing these things as beneficial for users. Here we’ll review the most significant changes this year, all […]

An increase in anti-LGBTQ+ intolerance is impacting individuals and communities both online and offline across the globe. Throughout 2023, several countries sought to pass explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives restricting freedom of expression and privacy. This fuels offline intolerance against LGBTQ+ people, and forces them to self-censor their online expression to avoid being profiled, harassed, doxxed, or […]

EFF has long advocated for affordable, accessible, future-proof internet access for all. Nearly 80% of Americans already consider internet access to be as essential as water and electricity, so as our work, health services, education, entertainment, social lives, etc. increasingly have an online component, we cannot accept a future where the quality of your internet […]

When a system becomes too tightly-controlled and centralized, the people being squeezed tend to push back to reclaim their lost autonomy. The internet is no exception. While the internet began as a loose affiliation of universities and government bodies, that emergent digital commons has been increasingly privatized and consolidated into a handful of walled gardens. […]

At EFF, we believe that all the rights we have in the offline world–to speak freely, create culture, play games, build things and do business–must hold up in the digital world, as well.  EFF’s longstanding project of fighting for a more balanced, just patent system has always borne free expression in mind. And patent trolls, […]

Private communication is a fundamental human right. In the online world, the best tool we have to defend this right is end-to-end encryption. Yet throughout 2023, politicians across Europe attempted to undermine encryption, seeking to access and scan our private messages and pictures.  But we pushed back in the EU, and so far, we’ve succeeded. […]

The EIT Digital Champions is a pan-European innovation competition to identify the best European digital technology scaleups, looking for venture capital financing at both the EU-level and beyond. Winners will be rewarded with free access to the 12-month EIT Digital Growth Services Program. What does the EIT Digital Growth Services Team do? The EIT Digital […]

Legislatures in more than half of the country targeted young people’s use of social media this year, with many of the proposals blocking adults’ ability to access the same sites. State representatives introduced dozens of bills that would limit young people’s use of some of the most popular sites and apps, either by requiring the […]

EFF works every year to improve policy in ways that protect your digital rights in states across the country. Thanks to the messages of hundreds of EFF members across the country, we’ve spoken up for digital rights this year from Sacramento to Augusta. Much of EFF’s state legislative work has, historically, been in our home […]

Whatever online harms you want to alleviate on the internet today, you can do it better—with a broader impact—if you enact strong consumer data privacy legislation first. That is a grounding principle that has informed much of EFF’s consumer protection work in 2023. While consumer privacy will not solve every problem, it is superior to […]