Apple and Meta, the company behind Instagram and Facebook, have been hit with fines totaling 700 million euros by the European Union. But why exactly? They violated a new European law targeting large tech companies. Apple must pay 500 million euros and Meta 200 million euros. We’ll explain exactly what the companies did to violate this law in this article!
Why were Meta and Apple fined by the EU?
Apple is being fined because the company strongly encourages users to purchase subscriptions through its own App Store, even though subscriptions may be available at a lower price outside the App Store. The restrictions that Apple intentionally imposes hinder developers. Meta is being fined because, for two months, the company offered Instagram and Facebook users two options: a paid subscription to the apps without ads, or free use of Facebook and Instagram in exchange for sharing personal data for advertising purposes. According to the EU, these actions violated the new law designed to prevent large companies from abusing their market power.
How are Meta and Apple responding to the fines?
Apple has already indicated that it plans to challenge the EU’s decision. Meta has criticized the decision. The new EU legislation took effect in March 2024. Immediately upon its implementation, the EU launched an investigation into Meta and Apple and essentially already determined that the tech giants had engaged in “abuse of power.” The fines were actually supposed to be imposed last year, but reports indicate this was postponed due to the trade war with the United States. Even now, there are still concerns about the impact these fines will have on tariff negotiations with President Trump.
How is the U.S. responding to the EU's decision?
The White House disagrees with the fines imposed on Apple and Meta, even calling them “a new form of economic extortion.” A White House spokesperson stated that the U.S. cannot tolerate this, hinting at a countermeasure. “Regulations that target American companies and undermine them, hinder innovation, and enable censorship will be recognized as trade barriers and a direct threat to free civil society,” the spokesperson told the media.
Import duties for the EU
President Trump had previously threatened to impose higher import tariffs on countries that penalize American companies. There are now fears that the fines imposed on Meta and Apple will escalate tensions between the EU and the United States. Trump reportedly already had a phone call with Apple’s CEO regarding fines that Apple was already worried about at the time. The EU’s Democratic Senator wrote a letter to Apple’s CEO last Wednesday asking for clarification on the support the company is receiving from President Trump. There is growing concern within the EU about Trump’s favoritism toward American companies and the consequences this could have for global trade.
Experts are constantly working to improve fiber-optic technology and find ways to make fiber-optic networks even faster. There are many factors that influence data transfer speeds within a fiber-optic network. Experts have now discovered that the shape of fiber-optic cables may also affect transfer speeds. In this article, we’ll tell you all about it!
Square fiber-optic cables instead of round ones?
Optical fibers, also known as glass fibers, make the high-speed internet we’ve come to expect around the world today possible. The demand for faster and more efficient data transmission continues to grow, especially with the advent of Artificial Intelligence. That’s why scientists and researchers are constantly seeking innovations and ways to optimize fiber-optic technology and make it even faster. In a recent study, experts at the University of Iowa discovered that an alternative fiber geometry can improve data transmission speeds. This research focused on rectangular fibers instead of the traditional circular cross-section. These findings could improve not only telecommunications but also the emerging field of photonic quantum computing.
The difference between optical communication and other methods
Optical communication uses light traveling through transparent fibers to transmit information. Unlike traditional communication methods, which rely on electrical signals or radio waves, fiber-optic technology offers a number of significant advantages over traditional communication methods:
- Optical signals lose very little speed as they are transmitted over longer distances;
- Data transfer rates can sometimes reach hundreds of gigabytes per second;
- A fiber-optic network is virtually impossible to hack.
These advantages are particularly evident in multimode fibers. In multimode fibers, multiple light paths—known as modes—allow multiple signals to travel simultaneously. However, multimode fibers also present a number of challenges.
The Challenges of Multimode Fiber
What are the challenges associated with multimode fibers? One of these challenges is signal distortion. Light traveling along different paths does not always arrive at the cable’s output at the same time or in the same position. This problem is sometimes further complicated by the fact that optical signals consist of multiple wavelengths, each moving at a slightly different speed and following unique paths. As a result, the output may appear distorted—and in some cases actually is. This is a challenge that experts are currently conducting extensive research on. Strategies are needed to improve correlations between waves of different frequencies that make up the signal.
Could modifying the shape of fiber-optic cables help?
Currently, we use a circular core for most optical fibers. The reason for this is that this shape makes it easier to manufacture the fibers. In addition, this shape makes it easier to align fibers with connectors and other optical components. However, research now shows that other shapes offer many advantages. In a study published in Advanced Photonics Research, experts investigated how light propagates through submillimeter-sized fibers with circular and rectangular cross-sections. In this way, the researchers sought to determine whether a different shape could improve frequency correlations.
What is the conclusion?
They investigated how laser pulses consisting of multiple wavelengths propagate through different fiber shapes. The results showed that rectangular fibers offered several advantages, despite the fact that they are more complicated to manufacture. The findings from the study suggest that rectangular optical fibers could improve the capacity of optical communication channels by about 20% compared to optical fibers with a circular cross-section. That’s quite a lot!
It always seemed like science fiction: cars that drive themselves without us humans having to do a thing. We all know by now that this is no longer science fiction, but that it’s actually within reach. Now it’s becoming a reality in our country too: the Netherlands will begin testing self-driving cars starting in 2027. But how does that actually work? That’s what we’ll be discussing in this article!
Why is the Netherlands suddenly testing self-driving cars?
It might seem to come out of nowhere, since our country hasn’t exactly been focusing much on this lately. The government would like to start testing autonomous vehicles in a few years, because otherwise they fear that manufacturers will conduct more testing abroad. This could result in self-driving cars being less attuned to Dutch roads. After all, roads in the Netherlands are generally much busier than roads in other countries. If we want to drive autonomous cars here, it’s important that those cars take that traffic into account.
Changes to the law in 2022
Since 2022, the Netherlands has been required to allow testing of self-driving cars. This is due to European regulations adopted that year. These regulations enable automakers to apply for approval of autonomous vehicles. To do so, the vehicles must first be tested on public roads; otherwise, they cannot be approved. In addition, government agencies and car manufacturers want to be able to test self-driving cars on public roads for other reasons. In this case, for example, it concerns models that are not yet ready for type approval. By testing these vehicles on public roads anyway, you also immediately test the interaction between humans, the vehicle system, and the road!
What makes Dutch roads so different?
Why is it actually so important for the Netherlands that self-driving cars also undergo testing on our roads? Both car manufacturers and government agencies want to know how the autonomous vehicle system interacts with typical Dutch traffic conditions. Things like road markings and driver behavior tend to vary quite a bit from country to country. That makes it necessary to test the system in each country to ensure it can be deployed safely. In Germany, for example, this would be important because drivers there are generally allowed to drive faster than in neighboring countries. Another benefit of these tests is that road authorities gain insight into what a road must meet to be suitable for self-driving systems.
The Netherlands is testing self-driving cars, but is that really safe?
We can imagine that testing autonomous cars on public roads sounds very unsafe to some people. Car manufacturers and government agencies naturally take the necessary precautions to ensure testing remains safe for other road users. They do this with the help of a so-called “safety driver.” This means that an additional driver is either physically present or remotely monitoring the actions of the self-driving system. Additionally, testing on public roads may only begin after the system has successfully completed all other forms of testing without any issues or areas for improvement. So you don’t need to worry that the tests will increase the risk of accidents!
Greater redundancy and a move away from monoculture
In the Netherlands, there is still a monoculture when it comes to internet networks and fiber-optic cables. This means that many networks lack backup cables or systems in the event of a failure or sabotage. We still see this frequently in the digital sector in our country. This monoculture now poses significant financial and digital risks. If undersea cables are sabotaged, essential networks could simply go down because they have no backup. This problem, of course, became very clear some time ago when airports and hospitals were shut down due to an update to Microsoft’s antivirus program.
How can you increase redundancy?
The question now, of course, is: how do we ensure greater redundancy in the Netherlands? According to political advisor Marijn van Vliet, we would do well to follow Germany’s example. There, the Center for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS) works to make the government less vulnerable. This initiative also promotes greater use of open-source software. Thanks to ZenDiS, the German government has an exit strategy—something we unfortunately lack in our country right now. Thanks to this initiative, public institutions can always fall back on an alternative. This makes institutions more independent and therefore better secured!
Surely that’s possible in the Netherlands too?
Yes, that should certainly be possible in the Netherlands as well. All open-source software is integrated, and then maintenance and patching are outsourced to a service provider, while hosting is handled by a cloud provider. The Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations must address this in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs. But in addition to this problem, we also have the vulnerable undersea cables near the Netherlands Antilles. In this area, there are only two fiber-optic cable routes, both of which belong to the same provider. If something goes wrong here, the entire Caribbean region goes down. So, in fact, an additional cable needs to be laid here. The Ministry of Defense is currently in talks with DINL regarding the physical security of the undersea cables.
Why was the ECCO established?
The establishment of ECCO was part of the settlement between Cispe and Microsoft in July. This settlement resolved an antitrust complaint filed with the European Commission against Microsoft. The company was accused of engaging in unfair competition. This vendor increasingly sells products such as Microsoft 365 and Windows alongside its own Azure Cloud and other services. As a result, other cloud providers with their own SaaS services are being sidelined. End customers who purchase the software ultimately suffer from this as well. In addition to co-founding the ECCO, the company paid compensation to Cispe and promised to develop an improved version of its Azure Stack HCI product for European cloud providers that is comparable to their own cloud solutions.
This is how ECCO monitors European software suppliers!
The ECCO will monitor European software vendors for unfair practices, but initially its focus will be on ensuring that Microsoft adheres to the agreements. Members of the watchdog are currently testing Microsoft’s modifications. A meeting with the company’s technical leadership will take place in Redmond, Washington, in December, after which a progress report is expected. Further evaluations of progress regarding the agreements with the company will follow in February and March. The ECCO will also apply this approach to other software suppliers in Europe, thereby keeping the cloud market fair and open to competition!
Independent audit by ECCO
ECCO is therefore a completely independent organization, managed by the CISPE secretariat and operating under an independent governance model. A group of French companies and organizations under the name Cigref and a Belgian association of CIOs and digital technology leaders under the name Beltug will act as observers on behalf of consumers. This ensures that ECCO’s assessments and statements are 100% independent and based on the truth.
1. Dora: for the financial sector
DORA stands for the Digital Operational Resilience Act. This law primarily targets the financial sector. The European regulation is intended to strengthen the operational resilience of financial institutions. This sector is, of course, already quite strictly regulated, but new laws continue to be introduced, particularly from the EU. The law applies not only to the financial sector but also to third-party IT suppliers, especially when it comes to cloud computing that supports critical functions.
2. NIS2: One of the most important European laws on cybersecurity!
The NIS 2 Directive is primarily focused on improving the digital and economic resilience of European member states. There are eighteen sectors that will be affected by the NIS-2 Directive, and it primarily focuses on measures related to cybersecurity risk management and the reporting of incidents in this area. Companies sometimes tend not to report cybersecurity incidents because they fear it could damage their reputation. However, reporting incidents is actually a crucial source of data for preventing such incidents in the future!
3. EU Cloud Certification Scheme
The EU Cloud Certification Scheme is a framework for certifying the digital security of cloud service providers. The EUCS is part of the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) of 2019. The schemes used under this directive are not mandatory, but there is a strong likelihood that they will become mandatory in the future.
4. Cyber Resilience Act: One of the European laws on product cybersecurity
This EU regulation primarily focuses on hardware and software products. It therefore does not concern the digital resilience of organizations, but rather the products that organizations use. The Cyber Resilience Act sets requirements for the cybersecurity of digital products sold in the EU, such as software and IoT devices. These requirements are mandatory, so all products must comply with them—no exceptions. All products that are directly or indirectly connected to a network are subject to this regulation!
What does ChatGPT Search bring to the table to compete with Google?
Of course, ChatGPT has long been used to perform searches in a similar way to how we would use Google. However, its capabilities in this regard were still limited. For example, the search function did not yet provide links to external sources, and search results were displayed only as text. ChatGPT Search not only provides answers in text but also includes links to external sources relevant to your query and, where possible, even photos, images, and visual data—such as graphs or tables. This makes the application a much stronger competitor to Google than it was before.
ChatGPT Search is an AI chatbot that cites sources
So ChatGPT actually offers real added value compared to Google, just like the AI bot Perplexity. After all, you don’t just get an answer to your question, but also a full list of sources with various links, so you can verify whether the answer is actually correct. This solves a major issue people have with using ChatGPT: you can never be sure if the answer it provides is accurate or where it gets its information from. OpenAI also recently announced that it has partnered with several companies to provide up-to-date information on topics such as the weather, sports scores, locations, and the news.
When will ChatGPT Search be available to everyone?
According to OpenAI, their search feature is now ready for the general public, but when will we all be able to use ChatGPT Search? Basically, starting right now! You can set ChatGPT as your default search engine if you want, instead of Google. In the Google Chrome browser, you can install an extension for this. The search feature is coming to the ChatGPT website and all apps. If you were on the waiting list for ChatGPT Search or have a ChatGPT Plus or Team account, you can start using the new feature right away. If you have an Enterprise or Edu account, the feature will become available to you sometime in the coming weeks. As a free user, you’ll have to wait a few more months, but eventually, everyone will be able to use ChatGPT Search instead of Google if they want!
Ransomware remains one of the biggest cyber threats
Ransomware has been a major threat for years, and it remains a significant risk today. The number of cases in which people fall victim to ransomware hasn’t necessarily increased, but cybercriminals have found new ways to scam people with it. Criminals combine ransomware with data exfiltration and then threaten to make sensitive information public. For companies that work with sensitive data, it is now therefore especially important to ensure their systems are properly secured. Hackers are also increasingly exploiting legitimate tools within systems to stay under the radar. This makes it increasingly difficult to detect them.
Social engineering is becoming more inventive
Social engineering also remains a common threat. Phishing is one of the most common forms of social engineering. Businesses, in particular, are increasingly affected by this, as fake emails are becoming harder and harder to distinguish from genuine ones. Today, cybercriminals use AI to make these emails look as real as possible. Through these emails, they try to gain access to company data or payments. As a business, it’s therefore wise to keep your staff vigilant about filtering out fake emails. This way, you can avoid a lot of trouble!
Malware is becoming increasingly difficult to detect
Of course, malware isn’t exactly a new phenomenon in the world of cybercrime. However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to detect, which naturally makes it more dangerous. Advanced cybercriminals are now even offering malware-as-a-service. This allows criminals with less technical expertise to easily launch attacks on companies. Malware is also becoming increasingly sophisticated and thus better at evading detection. To achieve this, polymorphic techniques are used, which allow the malware to change its form to bypass antivirus software.
The manipulation of information using AI is one of the biggest new cyber threats
Unfortunately, AI has opened up a lot of opportunities for cybercriminals. It has become easier to manipulate and deceive people by manipulating information with the help of artificial intelligence. For example, it is possible to mimic someone’s voice using AI. If you think you’re on the phone with a family member or close friend asking for money, it could just as easily be a cybercriminal. In addition, a lot of misinformation is being spread to manipulate people’s views and ways of thinking using AI. Do you receive a suspicious call from someone you think you know? Be vigilant and don’t jump to conclusions too quickly!
DDoS attacks are a nightmare for businesses
A DDoS attack has always been something every company fears, but this risk has now become much greater than it ever was. It is the most frequently reported threat, even more so than ransomware. Here, too, it is striking that cybercriminals are increasingly offering to carry out DDoS attacks for others in exchange for payment. This significantly increases the risk of large-scale attacks. As a result, DDoS attacks are currently one of the biggest cyber threats
Data breaches and attacks on supply chains
Finally, the threat of data breaches is increasing dramatically this year. This is because attackers are taking a much more targeted approach. Attackers also often put more pressure on companies, for example by threatening to make certain data public. As a result, companies are less likely to report a cyberattack or data breach to the police. Cybercriminals are also increasingly choosing to attack companies through their supply chains. They do this, for example, by spoofing emails from a supplier, which immediately gives them access to that supplier’s entire network.
Conclusion: Be aware of the biggest cyber threats right now
Over the past year, therefore, we haven’t really seen the emergence of new forms of cybercrime. Instead, existing threats have grown more severe due to new techniques and the refinement of existing ones. As a result, attacks are harder to detect, and threats are also more difficult to identify. Given the rapid changes in the field of cybercrime, it is important for every company to stay informed about current threats and take appropriate measures. You can never be too careful when it comes to today’s biggest cyber threats!
Warning from the AP
In its “Government Sector Policy,” the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) highlights this risk currently faced by government agencies. This risk involves not only the danger of being overly dependent on a service provider, but also all developments taking place within the government regarding privacy. To the public, it often seems that government agencies are still struggling to comply with privacy legislation. They are occasionally reprimanded by the AP for this. One of the concerns is that when the AP discovers vulnerabilities in government agencies’ systems, it often takes too long to address them. Reasons for this include outdated IT systems, a lack of knowledge, insufficient prioritization, or even a combination of all these factors. As a result, it sometimes takes far too long for data breaches or similar issues to be resolved.
The government lacks a great deal of knowledge
The biggest problem, therefore, is actually a significant knowledge gap within government agencies. As a result, it takes too long for outdated systems to be replaced and for problems to be resolved. Knowledge of privacy law is also often insufficient, particularly among executives. When GDPR violations occur, they are often the result of a lack of knowledge. The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) recently expressed concerns about GDPR compliance at the Tax and Customs Administration. For this reason, the authority will be scrutinizing this agency closely in the coming period.
The Impact of Generative AI on GDPR Compliance
Unfortunately, there are still many government agencies that believe they don’t need to fully understand privacy issues. The Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) is now deeply concerned about the impact generative AI will have on government compliance with the GDPR. Many municipalities have already indicated that they intend to experiment with this technology, but this could have significant consequences—especially since many municipalities fail to conduct proper research before proceeding with such experiments.
Compliance with the amended Telecommunications Act
So what exactly has changed in the Telecommunications Act over the past year? We’ll explain. Last year, the Telecommunications Act was amended to include a reporting and duty-of-care obligation for internet service providers and companies offering other telecommunications services. These changes give internet service providers greater responsibility for identifying cyber threats and ensuring digital resilience. Apart from the new obligations, these stricter requirements also signal preparations for the NIS2 Directive, also known as the Cybersecurity Act.
What do the duty to report and the duty of care entail?
The reporting obligation means that internet service providers are required to report any outages or other issues to the RDI as soon as possible. Security incidents must also be reported immediately, so that the RDI can be certain that the appropriate measures are being taken to protect customer data. The duty of care stipulates that an internet service provider must “take appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security and continuity of services.” The goal of the stricter legislation is to minimize security risks as much as possible and ensure that a provider’s services can be restored as quickly as possible following a disruption or other incident. Because incidents are reported quickly, security measures can be improved and greater insight into cyber threats is gained.
Preparing for the NIS2 Directive
In addition to the new obligations being imposed on internet service providers, the RDI will also examine preparations for the NIS2 Directive—which will become the Cybersecurity Act in the Netherlands—during its inspections. This is a technological directive established by the European Commission. The law has not yet entered into force, but it is expected to do so sometime next year. The directive sets stricter requirements regarding the security of network and information systems. During inspections, internet providers can therefore expect to be asked how they are already preparing for the Cybersecurity Act!