In a pivotal move, Apple, the tech giant renowned for its walled-garden ecosystem, is poised to open the gates. The buzz in the tech community is palpable: sideloading, a term that might sound like jargon, is set to become a household word among iOS users in the European Union. But what exactly is sideloading, and why is it stirring up such a commotion?

I was recently interviewed, in my capacity as an Internet law and policy attorney, and head of the Institute for Social Internet Public Policy, for an article sponsored by RSA about the impact that GDPR (the EU’s General Data Protection Rules), which goes into effect in the European Union in May 2018, is going to impact, well, everything. And, in particular, about how it will impact U.S. based businesses, because, trust me, it will.

The European Commission has sued the country of Sweden for failing to implement the European Union (EU) Data Retention Directive – a mandate of having in place data retention legislation aimed at codifying how and for how long an ISP must retain user data.