"Privacy and security will be the big tech stories of 2018", 4 Jan 2018

...Here are five aspects of technology that really will impact the more immediate future...

…[T]he General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR]…will…fix wide-ranging protections for EU citizen data…[and] impose strict obligations on data handling both inside and…outside the EU…[Linked] to this is the future of Privacy Shield, the critical EU/US data transfer agreement which eases compliance for companies that move EU data into the US…Europe’s Article 29 working party group of national data protection commissioners…[noted] that unless the US significantly improves Privacy Shield data protections…by the GDPR launch date, they’ll go to…the European Court of Justice [ECJ]…

…ECJ opinions on the balance between business, security and personal privacy have been strongly weighted towards protecting the civil and human rights granted to the citizen. That has meant multinational tech giants such as Facebook and Google have had to change the way they do business...

…[T]he US Federal Communications Commission…[abandoned] the principle of net neutrality…Telecommunications carriers and internet service providers…have their wish, the possibility of charging more for certain types of traffic. And potentially, of discriminating in other ways…

…The EU is introducing ways to address the wily tax avoidance techniques of companies…[T]he Republicans have…managed to pass…[a] highly unpopular new tax scheme…[S]uch taxation shifts are likely to change the way in which companies do business, structure their foreign branches, and behave – at least outwardly – in the coming year...