EU closes in on a deal to control digital giants

The countries of the European Union They are intensifying their negotiations around a bill to regulate the digital giants in the hope of a deal in November to end their malpractices, brought to light again by a former employee of Facebook.

Presented in December 2020, the two proposed laws to regulate digital services and markets respectively are being discussed by the European Parliament and by the Council, which represents the Member States.

Negotiations between the 27 countries and between MEPs recently accelerated, bolstered by revelations from former Facebook employee Frances Haugen about the company’s systematic inability to remedy the dire effects of its products so as not to hinder its profits.

Haugen, who will testify to MEPs on 8 November, accused Mark Zuckerberg’s company of deliberately removing disinformation filters to inflate platform traffic.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) wants to prohibit platforms from using algorithms to promote false information and dangerous speeches and impose an obligation on the main groups to moderate their content.

The second text, the Digital Market Law (DMA) provides specific rules for “systemic” actors, referring to issues such as the growing threat to free competition or the use of private user data.

Among these major players are the US “Gafam” – the acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft – who finance an intense pressure group with millions of euros to sweeten the standards.

Slovenia, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, is working to get governments to adopt a common position on these two laws at a meeting on November 25, a diplomat from that country told AFP.

“We are on the right track, but there are pending questions,” said another diplomat about the WFD.

Battles in the Europarliament

The States launched negotiations with MEPs to close a definitive agreement that allows these laws to be adopted during the French presidency of the EU, between January and June 2022.

“Time is counted”, warned this week Thierry Breton, European commissioner at the origin of these proposals.

The ambitious calendar could be staggered by the persistent divisions in the European Parliament, although the deputies who lead the negotiations are betting on a compromise between now and the beginning of 2022.

One of the battles concerns the DMA, which could force Apple to open its iPhones to competing app stores and which would limit Facebook and Google from tracking their users for advertising purposes, a tool that brings them thousands of million profit.

The Social Democrats, the second group in the European Parliament, wants to extend these rules to more companies such as Netflix, Booking or Airbnb, but the other groups are firmly against it.

“So far, we are on the right track” for a compromise, says text rapporteur Andreas Schwab, from the center-right group that dominates the community chamber.

Negotiations between MEPs “could be concluded in the coming weeks,” says Evelyne Gebhardt, of the Social Democrats.

Another crucial question for Parliament is who will enforce these new laws on the internet giants.

Some national authorities want to maintain competition, but others prefer that Brussels has the power to act quickly and throughout the European Union, especially in the digital services law that seeks to fight against illegal content.

Tech companies risk more severe fines or penalties if they don’t quickly and effectively resolve these issues.

Commissioner Thierry Breton fears that if Brussels does not have a strong power to enforce these laws, some states may be more lax than others in enforcing them.