Stories by Loek Essers

Payleven's chip-and-PIN readers land in Apple's retail stores

Mobile payments startup Payleven has struck a deal that calls for Apple to start selling chip-and-PIN readers in its retail stores across Europe.

EU likely to require more concessions from Google

The European Commission is likely to require more concessions from Google in an ongoing antitrust probe, the European Union's Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said.

Java developer says he built, launched basic open source office suite in 30 days

A freelance Java developer claims it took him only 30 days to build and launch a basic open source office suite that runs on multiple OSes.

Samsung's Galaxy S4 infringes on 5 patents, Apple says

Samsung's Galaxy S4 infringes on 5 Apple patents, according to a court filing by Apple.

WikiLeaks' donations barely enough to keep the servers running

Donations to WikiLeaks since January have only been enough to cover expenditures in essential infrastructure, such as servers, according to a transparency report.

Banking privacy prevails over copyright enforcement, Dutch court rules

Privacy laws protecting bank account holders are more important than providing information to aid in copyright enforcement, according to a Dutch court ruling this week.

German case on embedding YouTube videos referred to EU court

Embedded YouTube videos don't infringe copyright under current German law, but they could violate European rules, the German Federal Court of Justice said on Thursday.

German online copyright law to take effect in August

A German online copyright law that will give publishers the exclusive right to the commercial use of their publications on the Internet will come into effect on Aug. 1.

Syria disappears from the Internet again

Internet traffic to and from Syria, a country engulfed by civil war, again came to a halt on Wednesday, according to Internet monitoring company Renesys.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde to run for EU parliament

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde is planning to run for the European Parliament in 2014.

Google has to delete offensive autocomplete results, German federal court rules

Google has to remove search suggestions from autocomplete in Germany if the results are offensive, the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe ruled Tuesday.

Spamhaus DDoS suspect extradited to the Netherlands

A 35-year-old Dutchman suspected of participating in a large DDoS attack on antispam organization Spamhaus was extradited from Spain to the Netherlands on Monday evening, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service said Wednesday.

Consumer service lawsuit looms for Google in Germany

A lawsuit against Google's customer service practices in Germany is looming after the company declined to sign a document promising German consumer organizations to start answering customer emails individually.

Apple's privacy policy violates German data protection law, Berlin court rules

Apple violates German data protection law by asking for users' broad, overall consent in its privacy policy, the Regional Court of Berlin ruled.

Operator of German file-sharing site sentenced to almost four years in prison

A 33-year-old man was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison by a German court for running the torrent site torrent.to between December 2005 and April 2008.