Christmas lights bought on the internet that risk catching fire, traders manipulating consumers with false comments or financial scams via Google: these are all practices that the revision of internet rules should combat, according to a position paper published by the European Consumers Organisation (BEUC) on Wednesday 9 December.
The European Commission is finalising its Digital Services Regulation (DSA), which focuses on content, and its Digital Marketplace Regulation (DMA), which is designed to protect competition. These two texts, which have been delayed several times, are today announced for 15 December, together with a series of cybersecurity-related initiatives.
In the run-up to the event, Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton are making a number of statements.
So are the lobbies, as the BEUC press release shows.
Parliament is not to be outdone: on Tuesday 8 December, some 40 MEPs called on the Commission to strengthen the liability regime for online marketplaces and to introduce stricter rules for micro-targeting.
DSA: the contents
In a joint editorial published on 7 December in the Belgian daily paper Le Soir, Commissioners Vestager and Breton explain that the DSA will impose new obligations and responsibilities on all online intermediaries, mainly platforms, for all the content they host. “This ‘horizontal’ framework will be supplemented by sectoral legislation specifying, for each case, what defines illegal content (such as hate speech, terrorism, child pornography or the sale of illegal or counterfeit products) as well as corrections and specific responses”, explain the two representatives.
Concretely, the text should strengthen the current notification and withdrawal mechanism, introduce the Know Your Business Customer (KYBC) principle and include more transparency in the moderation policy (see EUROPE 12576/13). It will also include specific obligations for “very large platforms”.
DMA: the markets
The DMA will ensure that digital markets remain open and fair, targeting the economic behaviour of companies acting as “gatekeepers”. According to a previous impact assessment, this will involve targeting online intermediation services (marketplaces, application stores, and social networks), search engines, operating systems and cloud services (see EUROPE 12572/15).
This initiative will be based on two objectives: on the one hand, ex ante rules (a black list of unfair practices, a grey list of activities requiring the authorisation of a competent authority and a white list of obligations). And on the other, an investigative tool enabling the Commission to block a market foreclosure “by one or two companies”.
According to the Euractiv information site, the European Commission initially wanted a broader investigative tool, but had to revise it after a negative opinion from the Regulatory Review Committee. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)