[ckan-discuss] A remark on the EU Hackaton

Wed Sep 14 13:18:03 BST 2011

Hi Erik,

I think this is interesting but starting to get off-topic for ckan-discuss
:-) Is it time to take this to a take dedicated thread or move to a list
like okfn-help or getthedata-discuss?

Rufus

On 14 September 2011 12:39, Erik Wesselius <erik at corporateeurope.org> wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> Interesting. I had heard of this EU Hackaton <http://www.euhackathon.eu/>,
> but then forgot about it again.
>
> I don't want to spoil  the party, but I think it is relevant (and
> problematic) that the EU Hackaton is organised by N-SQUARE<http://www.n-square.eu/>,
> a lobbying consultancy that is specialising in telecoms, internet, new media
> and web 2.0 issues, lobbying on behalf of big players with a direct
> commercial interest in EU IT policies. *Those who participate in the EU
> Hackaton should at least be aware of these corporate links of the host
> organisation*.
>
> In the EU lobby transparency register, N-Square declares the following
> clients:<http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/displaylobbyist.do?id=61008951870-83>
>
>   Total turnover: 100000  € - 150000  €
>     *Clients generating a turnover of 10 % - 20 %.*
>
>    - EIAA
>
>
>    - Google
>
>
>
>     *Clients generating a turnover of 20 % - 30 %.*
>
>    - VON Europe
>
>
>
>     *Clients generating a turnover of 30 % - 40 %.*
>
>    - The Number
>
>
> EIAA stands for the European Interactive Advertising Association. This
> association recently merged into IAB Europe<http://www.iabeurope.eu/About.aspx>,
> the EU office of the Interactive Advertising Bureau -- they write on their
> website <http://www.iabeurope.eu/public-affairs.aspx> they have one in
> house lobbyist in Brussels, but IAB Europe is not listed on the EU lobby
> transparency register.
>
> VON Europe <http://www.voneurope.eu/category/mission/> is an industry
> coalition of the voice for the Internet-enabled communications (VoIP)
> industry. According to recent lobbying documents issued by VON Europe, the
> coalition includes companies like iBasis, Google, Microsoft, Rebtel, Skype
> and Voxbonehe coalition,which includes iBasis, Google, Microsoft, Rebtel,
> Skype and Voxbone,. The founder/owner of N-Square, Caroline de Cock (
> @linotherino <http://twitter.com/#%21/linotherhino>) is executive director
> of VON Europe. VON Europe is not listed on the EU lobby transparency
> register.
>
> The Number Company is a commercial directory enquiries provider which is a
> subsidiary of the US-based directory enquiries provider Knowledge Generation
> Bureau (formerly InfoNXX). *As an amusing sidenote, the abbreviation for
> the parent firm of the Number Company is KGB.* According to lobbying
> documents issued by The Number Company, the company does have an "Executive
> Director, Government and Business Affairs – Europe", but the firm is not
> listed in the voluntary EU lobby transparency register.
>
> Since a few months, Caroline de Cock is executive director of the European
> Centre for Public Affairs (ECPA) <http://www.theecpa.eu/>, which over the
> past 6 years has been one of the organisations representing the interests of
> corporate lobbyists in Brussels, and which has systematically undermined the
> public interest campaign for EU lobbying transparency and ethics rules (see
> the website of ALTER-EU, the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics
> Regulation <http://www.alter-eu.org>). ECPA is not on the EU lobby
> transparency register.
>
> Erik Wesselius
> Corporate Europe Observatory
>
>
>
> On 14/09/11 11:56, stef wrote:
>
> hey,
>
> On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 09:13:43AM +0200, Erik Wesselius wrote:
>
>  Thanks a lot for your help. I think the datasethttp://parltrack.euwiki.org/dumps/ is exactly what more-onion is
> looking for and I have forwarded the information to Florian.
>
>  great. altough we don't provide csv/spreadsheet formated dumps yet, we have
> started investigating this.
>
> btw have you looked into the apps themselves? http://www.parltrack.euwiki.org
> and http://memopol2.lqdn.fr
>
>  Quite exciting that this information is available as open data!
>
>  there's quite a lot actually:https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Parliamentary_informaticshttp://ckan.net/dataset?q=european+parliament
>
>  I think that many many people and public interest groups working on EU
> issues would find this extremely useful.
>
>  infact we are doing this for public interests groups, we're working with
> laquadrature du net, EFF and EDRi on these topics, other digital rights
> and journalist organizations might be also infected. ;)
>
>
>  Which makes me think that it might be a good idea to organise an open-data
> "teach in" in Brussels for public interest groups working on EU issues.
>
>  indeed. we do engage in these things. in october there'll be a hacks for
> transparency in the EP organized by N-squared.
> http://www.euhackathon.eu/
>
> where the european parliament free software user group is having a side event
> on exactly some tools we have for disinfecting eu politics. ;)
>
>
>  Let's start thinking about this :-)
>
>  pls consider either the week of the ep hackaton for such events, i'm anyway in
> bxl then. or we should make up some other date so we can start working towards
> that.
>
>
>  Kind greetings on what may prove to be a crucial day for Europe and the euro,
>
>  i guess the "crucial day for the euro" is unrelated to the parl-data we scrape,
> right?
>
>
>
> --
> email:   erik at corporateeurope.org
>
> phone:   +31-(0)30-2364422
> mobile:  +32-(0)476-901587 (only when I'm in Belgium)
> skype:   zilverling
> twitter: erikwesselius
>
> website: http://www.corporateeurope.org
>
>
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>

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