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Tuesday, October 6, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decided to strike down the "Safe Harbor", a key legal principle that had enabled U.S. web giants (Google, Facebook and Apple) who operate in the European Union to store and manipulate the personal data of people living there.

The "Safe Harbor" was the result of an agreement from the July 26, 2000 in which the European Commission considered that the countries who signed the agreement, agreed to a level of protection in accordance with the European standards of personal data for the EU citizens.

But the Snowden case has changed everything. The massive NSA spying of the European citizen's data is a violation of the agreement, causing its end in the ruling of the CJEU.

Since last week, no one could have missed the Volkswagen scandal in the headlines of the media.

Indeed, it seems clear that the German manufacturer has embedded in its vehicles a system to detect particle emissions controls and changed the results in order to comply with the law and the standards required by the EU and the United States.

This scandal raises the debate on the lack of transparency of the proprietary software used in the automobile sector and in the Internet of Things (IoT).

In a global economy which is highly competitive and in a constant evolution, the competitive intelligence is a must have for any organization wanting to ensure its sustainability.

Investing time and money in a competitive intelligence strategy allows to:

• Anticipate changes
• Spot opportunities
• Detect threats