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Content Delivery Networks: Market Overview and Technology Innovations
Published in Hassnaa Moustafa, Sherali Zeadally, Media Networks: Architectures, Applications, and Standards, 2016
Media delivery refers to hi-performance content delivery for static media objects including HD. It includes but is not limited to video streaming (e.g., live event), video progressive download, and delivery of video ad, software, game, or large files. Geo-blocking, that is, the ability to limit the access to some contents, and geo-targeting, that is, the possibility to select a version of a specific content according to geographical criteria, are widely supported by most CDN service providers. Major media formats, for example, Adobe Flash, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, Microsoft Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, as well as major media delivery protocols, for example, HTTP, Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), Microsoft Media Services (MMS), Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), or File Transfer Protocol (FTP) are supported too.
Paradigms of EU Consumer Law in the Digital Age
Published in Matthias C. Kettemann, Alexander Peukert, Indra Spiecker gen. Döhmann, The Law of Global Digitality, 2022
Firstly, online platforms function as gatekeepers in making decisions as to which suppliers and consumers will be admitted to a respective platform market. In particular, algorithmic models employed by the platform operators may often lead to a subtle shaping of preferences or even to a full or partial denial of consumer access to the platform and its offerings.74 From a contractual point of view, the acceptable standards of such gatekeeping are only fragmentarily regulated on the EU level.75 If a certain limitation of access by consumers76 is based on suspicious criteria, the Directives against discriminatory behaviour in contractual relations77 may apply. On a cross-border level, the Geo-Blocking Regulation78 prohibits impairment of access to online interfaces, such as professional websites, on the basis of nationality or place of residence (Art. 3) and also puts a ban on making the general conditions of access to goods or services dependent on these criteria (Art. 4). However, these rules do not amount to a duty to deal with specific customers or to deliver goods to certain states,79 nor does the compliance with the Geo-Blocking Regulation, in itself, amount to a targeting of certain markets in the sense of Art. 17(1)(c) of the Brussels Ibis Regulation and Art. 6 of the Rome I Regulation.80 This leads to a rather limited contribution of the Geo-Blocking Regulation to a consumer’s right of access to platforms on a practical level.81 However, there might be some supplementary approaches in national law to tackle the problem of platform access by consumers. For example, the German Federal Constitutional Court has decided that private actors may not exclude individuals without good cause and due process from activities which are (generally) open to the public and the access to which is important for participating in social life.82 Although the case at hand was from the offline world and concerned the access to soccer stadiums, it may well be argued that some online platforms nowadays are at least as important for social life as sporting events. Along that line, the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court could be the starting point of a stricter legal scrutiny on online platform operators’ decisions as to admission to the platform.
Geographic dependency of identity-associated data
Published in Automatika, 2018
These observations indicate that personal data representations inherently depend on geographic localities. Additional geographic dependency stems from the fact that the identity bearers are authorized to different services and subjected to different policies in part based on their current geographic location. This fact may be observed in the currently widely used and globally deployed systems for digital rights management (DRM) governing the use of multimedia content such as film, music, computer games and e-books [1]. Some such systems feature region-dependent policies, also known as geoblocking that allow access to digital content only to users living in certain regions [2].