Any record industry executive would have been weeping into his cornflakes today as he perused the newspapers. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) was reported everywhere as having handed victory in a battle to privacy activists and file-sharers by ruling that ISPs do not have to hand over subscriber details in file sharing or any other civil cases.

The problem is that these reports have missed the point. What the ECJ actually said was that national governments can, effectively, do what they like on the issue.

Therefore, if Spain wants to rule that file-sharer details can only be revealed in criminal cases, it can. However, if UK courts want to hold, as they do, that file-sharer details can be revealed in all cases, then that's fine too.

It all boils down to the slightly complicated question that the ECJ was asked. Telecoms firm Telefónica argued that Spanish law prevented it revealing user details except in criminal cases. Music rights-holders' group Promusicae, though, said that law was inconsistent with the EU directive protecting copyright.

The Spanish court asked the ECJ whether Spain was allowed to have a rule preventing disclosure in civil cases. The ECJ said that such a rule was okay. The ECJ did not say that all member States had to prevent disclosure in civil cases to protect privacy rights as has been reported.

The court, very even-handedly, said that the issue put two crucial rights in fundamental opposition: an internet user's right to privacy and a music producer's right to protect its copyright.

Each side in the argument had an entire EU directive on its side, and the ECJ was asked to choose between them. It didn't, instead telling EU nations that they could create their own laws provided they balanced the two rights properly.

Spain, then, was allowed to keep a law that said names can only be revealed in civil cases, as long as its law overall kept a proportional balance between the right to privacy and protection for copyright holders. And here's the nub of the issue, it is a criminal offence to host copyright-infringing material in Spain for profit or on a commercial scale, even if not for profit.

The music industry executive should be marginally happier now, but the one industry it could unsettle is the telecoms business. What practical effect will the ruling have in the hard world of commerce?

One potential effect is forum shopping.

UK music fans generally can't subscribe to ISPs in Spain, because Spanish ISPs don't lay cables along the streets of Britain or install kit in British telephone exchanges (and satellite broadband is an expensive solution for free downloads). But they might use a Spanish web host to store copyright-infringing files. Entire companies could relocate to countries that would not order names to be revealed in civil cases, to pick up this business, and countries that do reveal names, such as the UK, might find their ISP businesses suffering.

So what might be relief for the record industry executive might well become a headache for his counterpart in a telecoms firm. But probably only a minor headache.

Like a trigger-happy tourist, Google has shot almost every street in five US cities and added its pictures to what might be the world's biggest holiday album. But if Google ever starts shooting the streets of Europe, courts here could fight back.

Google Maps Street View is the latest service from the search giant. Vehicles with multi-lens cameras travelled the streets of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami and snapped everything in their paths. The images were uploaded to Google Maps and now, when you're looking at a location in Google Maps that has been photographed, you can see the pictures. If you live in a featured city and you've been passed by a Google van or a car from its partner, Immersive Media, the cameras probably saw you too.

Privacy fears were first raised by New Yorker Mary Kalin-Casey. She told the Boing Boing blog that, when trying out Street View, she recognised her cat, Monty, through the window of her own home. She said that the experience made her shake (though she'd have more cause for alarm if the camera captured her Georgian silverware).

If you are caught on camera and complain to Google, Google will remove the pics. But that may not be enough for Europe's courts.

Our data protection regime lets us take holiday snaps, even of strangers, provided we're doing so for private purposes. But if we're taking snaps for commercial use, where individuals are identifiable, there is no such exemption. We need to notify the subjects, and that's hard for Google to do. Even a loudspeaker on top of the camera cars ("Hi, it's Google here, say 'cheese' everybody!") might not suffice.

The law sets extra requirements for so-called sensitive personal data: it demands explicit consent, not just notification. That means when taking pictures of someone leaving a church or sexual health clinic - which could reveal a religious belief or an illness - camera cars might need to pull over and start picking up signatures.

It's not just those who are identifiable and caught in the act that can give Google a tough time. We Europeans could ask Google to ensure that no picture of us appears in Google Maps in the first place.
The nature of this rule varies across Europe, but in the UK we have a right to prevent the display of an image that would cause substantial distress. All we have to do is send an email to Google asking that it does not display a picture of us: "Dear Google, I think your camera caught me in Hyde Park this lunch time canoodling with my wife's best friend. Please make sure I can't be seen in Google Maps because this may cause me substantial distress. I've attached a picture of what I look like." If Google refuses or ignores you, you can go to the Information Commissioner and ask him to enforce the right. If there's damage and distress, you can sue.

Street View on the streets of London? The risks are clear, but few would bet against Google giving it a shot.

It has not been a good start to the year for Intel.  Not only has the chip-maker announced that its fourth quarter earnings are down 39 per cent, its stock has fallen over the last couple of days, it has slashed its workforce substantially (by mid 2007 the number will be nearly 10,000) but it is also at the heart of a major competition enquiry.

To make matters worse the EU Commissioner is now under pressure from EU anti-trust experts to make a decision on whether Intel's behaviour has contravened competition law.  The answer the experts are looking for is "Yes".  Such a claim has been levelled at Intel by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) who has said that Intel has abused its dominant market position. 

So what could this mean for Intel?  Abusing a dominant market position is a pretty serious offence under competition law.  Any company doing so would be held in breach of Article 82 of the EC Treaty and potentially subject to a substantial fine.  It is not so long ago that Microsoft showed us just how large this fine could be. 

In 2004 Microsoft was fined €497m for abusing its "near monopoly" on computer operating systems.  In addition to this hefty fine, the Commission gave the corporation 90 days in which to make available a European version of its Windows operating system to PC makers without a media player and 120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market to allow them to develop their products in order that they would have full "interoperability" with desktop computers using Windows.  Again in July last year, Microsoft received a second fine of €280.5m for continued non-compliance with the 2004 order which compelled it to share complete interoperability information.

Even though it is important to preserve competition in the market place to sustain business and for the sake of the consumer, there perhaps comes a point at which it seems that a competition judgment is the price a company will pay for attaining success and a dominant position in the market.  For years of hard work and careful manufacture, Microsoft and perhaps Intel too, are asked, as a result of competition rulings, to share their trade secrets with the very organisations they have worked so hard to surpass.  Which begs the question: at this level is competition law really able to protect consumers, or do companies just see it as a success tax?"