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International audience ; With the advent of blockchain technologies, a new wave of innovation is underway in the realm of governance. This innovation is one that will benefit multiple categories of actors: the insiders, i.e. governmental authorities relying on blockchain technology to increase the transparency and accountability of public administrations; the outsiders trying to create new self-sovereign nations with the intention to escape from the laws and control of existing nation-states; and the beyonders, like Bitnation, eager to use the technology to support the coordination of transnational communities of voluntary association that operate independently of traditional nation-states, but are capable of peacefully coexisting with them.

International audience ; Decentralized architectures are gaining popularity as a way to protect one's privacy against the ubiquitous surveillance of states and corporations. Yet, in spite of the obvious benefits they provide when it comes to data sovereignty, decentralized architectures also present certain characteristics that—if not properly accounted for—might ultimately impinge upon users' privacy. While they are capable of preserving the confidentiality of data, decentralized architectures cannot easily protect themselves against the analysis of metadata. Accordingly, if not properly designed, decentralized infrastructures intended to promote individual privacy and autonomy might turn out to be much more vulnerable to governmental or corporate surveillance than their centralized counterparts. This paper analyses the case of Bitcoin and other blockchain-based networks, as an example of decentralized infrastructures which suffers from radical transparency. While they provide a series of privacy benefits to end-users, the characteristics of these networks present both advantages and risks to the privacy of end-users. On the one hand, the pseudonymous nature of many blockchain-based networks allows for people to transact on a peer-to-peer basis, without disclosing their identity to anyone. On the other hand, the transparency inherent to these networks is such that anyone can retrieve the history of all transactions performed on a blockchain and rely on big data analytics in order to retrieve potentially sensitive information. The paper concludes that, in spite of the apparent dichotomy between transparency and privacy, there is no real conflict between the two. With the use of advanced cryptographic techniques, it is only a matter of time before people identify news ways to preserve individual privacy in decentralized architectures.

International audience ; Decentralized architectures are gaining popularity as a way to protect one's privacy against the ubiquitous surveillance of states and corporations. Yet, in spite of the obvious benefits they provide when it comes to data sovereignty, decentralized architectures also present certain characteristics that—if not properly accounted for—might ultimately impinge upon users' privacy. While they are capable of preserving the confidentiality of data, decentralized architectures cannot easily protect themselves against the analysis of metadata. Accordingly, if not properly designed, decentralized infrastructures intended to promote individual privacy and autonomy might turn out to be much more vulnerable to governmental or corporate surveillance than their centralized counterparts. This paper analyses the case of Bitcoin and other blockchain-based networks, as an example of decentralized infrastructures which suffers from radical transparency. While they provide a series of privacy benefits to end-users, the characteristics of these networks present both advantages and risks to the privacy of end-users. On the one hand, the pseudonymous nature of many blockchain-based networks allows for people to transact on a peer-to-peer basis, without disclosing their identity to anyone. On the other hand, the transparency inherent to these networks is such that anyone can retrieve the history of all transactions performed on a blockchain and rely on big data analytics in order to retrieve potentially sensitive information. The paper concludes that, in spite of the apparent dichotomy between transparency and privacy, there is no real conflict between the two. With the use of advanced cryptographic techniques, it is only a matter of time before people identify news ways to preserve individual privacy in decentralized architectures.

International audience ; This article provides an overview of national policies and current discussions on the regulation of bitcoin in Europe and beyond. After presenting the potential threat that cryptocurrencies pose to governmental and financial institutions worldwide, it discusses the regulatory challenges and the difficulty for national regulators to come up with a sound regulatory framework, which the author believes explains the current (lack of) regulatory responses in this field. The article concludes that regulation is needed, but that in order not to excessively stifle innovation in this nascent ecosystem, some of these challenges might better be addressed through self-regulation.

International audience ; This article provides an overview of national policies and current discussions on the regulation of bitcoin in Europe and beyond. After presenting the potential threat that cryptocurrencies pose to governmental and financial institutions worldwide, it discusses the regulatory challenges and the difficulty for national regulators to come up with a sound regulatory framework, which the author believes explains the current (lack of) regulatory responses in this field. The article concludes that regulation is needed, but that in order not to excessively stifle innovation in this nascent ecosystem, some of these challenges might better be addressed through self-regulation.

This article provides an overview of national policies and current discussions on the regulation of bitcoin in Europe and beyond. After presenting the potential threat that cryptocurrencies pose to governmental and financial institutions worldwide, it discusses the regulatory challenges and the difficulty for national regulators to come up with a sound regulatory framework, which the author believes explains the current (lack of) regulatory responses in this field. The article concludes that regulation is needed, but that in order not to excessively stifle innovation in this nascent ecosystem, some of these challenges might better be addressed through self-regulation.

This article presents a general analysis of how user autonomy in the cloud is increasingly put into jeopardy by the growing comfort and efficiency of the user-interface. Although this has not been, thus far, explicitly addressed by the law, it is a fundamental ethical question that should be carefully assessed to guide the future deployment of cloud computing. Different policy decisions might, in fact, significantly affect user's fundamental rights and online freedoms by shifting the balance from one part or another of the trade-off. This article aims to explore emerging trends in cloud computing technologies and analyse them from an ethical perspective to identify the issues they might raise, and the extent to which current laws and regulations actually take these issues into account.

Cloud computing services are increasingly hosted on international servers and distributed amongst multiple data centres. Given their global scope, it is often easier for large multinational corporations to effectively circumvent old taxation schemes designed around the concept of territorial jurisdiction and geographical settings. In view of obtaining tax revenues from these online operators whose business is partially carried out in France, the French government recently issued a report emphasising the need for new taxation rules that would better comply with the way value is generated in the digital economy: at the international level, it is suggested that taxation should be calculated according to the place of interaction with end-users; at the national level, the report suggests to introduce a transitory tax on data collection in order to promote innovation and encourage good online practices.

International audience ; The book begins with an analysis of copyright law as it applies to the physical and the digital world. The challenges that the law has to face in the digital environment are specifically addressed by illustrating how the self-regulating features of the copyright regime have been jeopardized with the advent of Internet and digital technologies. The book subsequently analyses the role of private ordering in the regulation of information and presents the various mechanisms of self-help that have been developed so far to address the challenges of the digital world. The contrast is between the use of end-user licensing agreements and technological measures of protection (e.g. DRM) intended to restrict the consumption of digital works beyond the scope of the copyright regime, and the use of Open Content licenses (e.g. Creative Commons) intended to support a greater dissemination and broader availability of works, amidst other goals. The book finally investigates the corresponding advantages and drawbacks of these two divergent approaches, and concludes by addressing the justifications for governmental intervention in regulating the operations of private ordering.