EU Commission presents mammoth laws: Internet companies should be more strictly regulated: billions in fines threaten
Corporations such as Google, Amazon or Facebook, with their overwhelming market power in Europe, should no longer roll down competition in the future. They are “too big to care”, that is, “too big to adhere to the rules”, as EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager stated.
Which is why the EU Commission presented two long-awaited mammoth legal acts in Brussels on Tuesday that pursue a clear goal: The power of the Internet giants is to be restricted.
It's about nothing other than fundamentally new rules for the digital economy: the long-term goal is to create an equal playing field where smaller companies also get a chance.
“Blacklist”
To do this, the EU Commission needs a tool kit to counter the abuse of the market power of the major platforms – such as a long “black list” of future prohibited practices:
For example, online retailers are to be prohibited from competing with their own business customers. This is aimed at Amazon: The retail giant evaluates data from its business customers in order to offer their most successful products at a lower price.
Or: Prefer your own offers in the search results – as Google does. Or, as in the case of Apple: only download apps from the company's own app store. Or, as Competition Commissioner Vestager puts it: “We have to do our shopping safely and be able to trust the news we read. Because everything that is forbidden offline is also forbidden online. “
If the corporations violate the rules, it imposes fines or other sanctions up to and including the requirement to sell parts of the business.
Illegal content
In addition, through its second legislative package – the digital market act – the EU Commission wants to oblige corporations to take stronger action against illegal content on their platforms: child pornography, terror propaganda, hate speech – platforms like Facebook do not have to be liable for such content either but if the company is notified it must delete it. Otherwise, penalties of up to ten percent of annual sales are threatened: Facebook could run into billions.
Protests against Facebook in Brussels, in front of the EU Commission
New rules for the Internet are overdue, confirms European Minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) to KURIER: “The current EU legal framework was last updated in 2000, this is the digital age. I am therefore glad that the Commission has presented the Digital Services Act and that the starting signal is now being given for a Europe-wide discussion. “
It will take at least one to two years before the reality test of the new EU regulations is passed. The EU Parliament and the Council of the responsible EU ministers must also agree.
“In Austria, we have therefore taken the lead in close coordination with the Commission and are already taking large platforms to account,” said Edtstadler, referring to the communications platform law passed by the National Council on Thursday. “It is important to protect the freedom of expression,” says Edtstadler, “we can in no way leave that to the US data corporations.”
It will not be easy to curb the market power of the large US corporations, which have been lobbying massively for months for proposals from Brussels that are as pleasing as possible. The EU Commission always tried to make its proposals look as harmless as possible: companies are more than welcome to be successful in the EU – but only if other companies are not unlawfully held down, said Vestager.
