Big Brother Awards Spain 2003

Ediciones Anteriores : BBA Spain 2002

Public Sector Award:
The Danish Presidency of the EU
Qualifications: its plans to make data retention mandatory in all Member States
Runners-ups:
Ana Palacio, currently Spainīs Foreign Affairs Minister (for her role in the race for data retention while she was a Member of the EP)
The LSSI (Information Society Services Bill, which includes data-retention obligations among other beauties)
Private Sector Award:
Deutsche Bank
Qualifications: Deutsche Bank Spainīs firing of one of his workers (a worker union liaison), whose email was intercepted without his consent and without a judge order, in violation of Article 18 of the spanish constitution; the worker is currently suing DB for that reason
Runners-ups:
El Corte Inglés, Spainīs largest department store, for his all-out surveillance by CCTV cameras both inside and outside its facilities.
Telefónica, Spainīs largest phone operator, for his aggresive market tactics, his lack of interest toward users, and other abuses (BTW: it didnīt win, but got by far the largest applause from the crowd!)
Intrusive Technologies Award:
Microsoft Passport
Qualifications: this technology, initially designed for e-commerce, can be easily abused and large amounts of personal data snatched by large companies, with little or no control at all from the user.
Runners-ups:
Eresmas, a spanish ISP recently known to track and log its userīs behavior, allegedly for commercial gains.
Intel, for his repeated attempts to ID every chip it makes, thus allowing an easy tracking of each computerīs activity.
PeopleīS Choice:
SGAE
Qualifications: his support to highly aggresive anticopy systems, and also for forcing ever virgin CD to have a canon to compensate authors for lost revenue due to piracy; the fact that EVERY CD carries this canon regardless of its final use, doesnīt seem to bother them.
Runners-ups:
lots of them, take from me!
"Mariana Pineda" (*):
The "Stop1984" campaign.
Qualifications: for its fight against data-retention initiatives in the EU.
Runners-ups:
Senator Félix Lavilla, Kriptopolis.com website, Jordi Murgó (designer of anti-sniffer detector systems), sindominio.net).

(*) Positive Award In Defense Of Cyber-Rights

Copyleft 2003 - CPSR Spain. Distribution and copy is granted, giving propper credit, and a link to original content.