The battle to influence the future draft of the Digital Services Act has already begun. Following a request for access to documents, the news website Netzpolitik has brought to light the various arguments used by various parties in order to attempt to influence this initiative, which is scheduled for the end of the year.
The Digital Services Act is expected to update the rules applicable to the provision of digital services (see EUROPE 12418/2). According to the draft industrial strategy, this act is expected to tackle “the dissemination of illegal content [by setting well-targeted due diligence rules] or lack of transparency [e.g., in the field of online advertising]” (see EUROPE 12412/7). However, its connection with the E-Commerce Directive and the principle of limited liability of platforms is less clear. In the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs, Vice-President of the European Commission Margrethe Vestager had indicated that this issue had not yet been decided. “I don’t know yet. We’re not there yet. It’s too soon”, she had said in response to a question from MEP Tiemo Wölken (S&D, Germany) (see EUROPE 12413/6).
According to documents that Netzpolitik obtained from the German authorities, European newspaper publishers wish to keep the ‘safe harbour’ principle, which provides for derogations from the principle of liability. If this principle were to be revised, the organisations EMMA and ENPA consider that a threshold should be established in order to distinguish large platforms—for example, by taking into account the size and nature of their services. For its part, the Association of Commercial Television in Europe emphasises that the scope of the ‘safe harbour’ derogations must not be broadened in order to level down the liability of providers of so-called ‘active’ services. Finally, the journalist points out that the German authorities refused to disclose correspondence from Google, citing business confidentiality. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)