Bits: Accessories Market Is Expanding for Samsung Phones

Incase Incase cases for the Galaxy S4.

Here’s a sign that Samsung Electronics continues to rise as a challenger to Apple in the handset market: the proliferation of third-party accessories supporting its Galaxy phones.

Incase, a popular case maker in San Francisco, on Thursday started selling its first protective cases for the new Galaxy S4 phone, adding to the hundreds of thousands of accessories in the market made for Samsung products. Before, it had sold a case for the earlier model, the Galaxy S3.

Various accessory makers like Mophie, OtterBox, Tech Armor and Aduro also sell gear for Samsung phones. A quick search in Amazon.com’s cellphone accessories category for “Samsung Galaxy accessories” turns up over 537,000 results. A search for “iPhone accessories” turns up about 1 million results.  By contrast, a search for “Lumia accessories” — products made for Nokia’s less-popular Windows phones — gets about 52,000 results.

A similar search on BestBuy.com turns up about 2,200 results for “iPhone accessories,” about 1,600 results for “Samsung Galaxy accessories” and 51 results for “Lumia accessories.”

These are hardly scientific surveys. But they give an idea of just how big a rival the Samsung Galaxy phones have become — not just in terms of sales, but also in terms of the number of third-party companies backing them.

Why care about support from accessory makers? If consumers buy extras for their phones, they’re likely to keep buying phones from the same company so they can keep using those accessories. Accessory makers must be confident in Samsung’s products in order to be devoting manufacturing for them.

It used to be the case that “case maker” was synonymous with “iPhone case maker.” But as Nick Wingfield and I reported this week, the accessories market has substantially broadened to support devices other than Apple’s.

Ministers Express Doubts on Expanding Data Protection Laws

BERLIN — E.U. justice ministers reacted coolly on Friday to a plan that would give consumers the ability to expunge the personal details Internet businesses have collected on them, essentially allowing individuals to block most kinds of online ads.

During an informal meeting in Dublin, the ministers expressed reservations about elements of the proposal, which would impose new limits on data collection and profiling and give national regulators the ability to levy hefty fines equal to 2 percent of sales on companies that failed to comply.

Alan Shatter, the Irish justice minister who chaired the closed-door meeting, said the ministers were concerned that the measures would stymie the Internet’s development by hampering the targeted advertising that makes possible most free services.

“An overall conclusion is that there is widespread acceptance of the need for a uniform approach to regulation,” Mr. Shatter said at a news conference. “There is also a widespread understanding of the need to ensure that business can properly work under any new structure while ensuring the existence of certain protections.”

Ireland holds the European Union’s rotating presidency through June, and Mr. Shatter is seeking an agreement among justice ministers on the proposal. The ministers must approve the plan before a proposal is put to the European Parliament.

Europe last updated its primary data protection laws in 1995, when the Internet was in its infancy and the concept of mining consumer data did not yet exist. The legislative effort to produce an updated law is expected to continue into 2014.

Mr. Shatter described the discussions with ministers as “very interesting and considered” but noted that the conclusion of the group, at least initially, was that updated E.U. data protection laws must be “balanced and proportionate” and not stifle businesses.

The comments by the ministers, their first public statements on the proposal, suggest that privacy advocates have a long road ahead. Viviane Reding, the European justice commissioner who initially proposed the changes last year, said much work still needed to be done.

Appearing with Mr. Shatter, Ms. Reding referred to the “difficult work on the table” before officials could put forth a plan. She said enhanced consumer protections would encourage more online commerce, which in turn would bolster the European economy. She referred to a European Commission study showing that Web businesses could save an estimated €2.3 billion, or $3.1 billion, in legal and other fees if E.U. data protection laws were harmonized.

“There needs to be the trust between citizens and the data controllers,” Ms. Reding said, adding that the more trust there was, the better it would be for business. “So this is a growth-enhancing project.”

Web businesses and advertisers see it differently. They consider the effort to tighten controls a threat to the advertising model that finances much of the Internet. Individual E.U. members are also divided on the issue.

According to a confidential memo prepared on Dec. 12 by E.U. administrators from Cyprus, which at the time held the Union’s rotating presidency and presided over meetings on the issue last year, several European countries have reservations about expanding consumer protections on the Internet.

Four countries — Austria, Estonia, France and Ireland — supported the new right to be forgotten, according to a summary of the meeting seen by the International Herald Tribune, but many countries expressed doubts, like Britain, Germany, Spain, Denmark and Luxembourg.

Representatives of Britain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands said a new online “right to be forgotten” could be used to limit freedom of expression, chilling the flow of information on the Web.

According to the memo, representatives of Britain, which has one of the largest advertising industries in Europe, repeatedly objected to many elements, citing concern for how the measure would affect the Internet’s development.