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EU The Internet Government Technology

EU Names 19 Large Tech Platforms That Must Follow Europe's New Internet Rules (arstechnica.com) 75

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The European Commission will require 19 large online platforms and search engines to comply with new online content regulations starting on August 25, European officials said. The EC specified which companies must comply with the rules for the first time, announcing today that it "adopted the first designation decisions under the Digital Services Act." Five of the 19 platforms are run by Google, specifically YouTube, Google Search, the Google Play app and digital media store, Google Maps, and Google Shopping. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram are on the list, as are Amazon's online store, Apple's App Store, Microsoft's Bing search engine, TikTok, Twitter, and Wikipedia. These platforms were designated because they each reported having over 45 million active users in the EU as of February 17. The other listed platforms are Alibaba AliExpress, Booking.com, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, and German online retailer Zalando.

Companies have four months to comply with the full set of new obligations and could face fines of up to 6 percent of a provider's annual revenue. One new rule is a ban on advertisements that target users based on sensitive data such as ethnic origin, political opinions, or sexual orientation. There are new content moderation requirements, transparency rules, and protections for minors. For example, "targeted advertising based on profiling towards children is no longer permitted," the EC said. Companies will have to provide their first annual risk assessment on August 25, and their risk mitigation plans will be subject to independent audits and oversight by the European Commission. "Platforms will have to identify, analyze and mitigate a wide array of systemic risks ranging from how illegal content and disinformation can be amplified on their services, to the impact on the freedom of expression and media freedom," the EC said. "Similarly, specific risks around gender-based violence online and the protection of minors online and their mental health must be assessed and mitigated."
The new requirements for the 19 platforms include:
- Users will get clear information on why they are recommended certain information and will have the right to opt-out from recommendation systems based on profiling;
- Users will be able to report illegal content easily and platforms have to process such reports diligently; - Platforms need to label all ads and inform users on who is promoting them;
- Platforms need to provide an easily understandable, plain-language summary of their terms and conditions, in the languages of the Member States where they operate.

Platforms will be required to "analyze their specific risks, and put in place mitigation measures -- for instance, to address the spread of disinformation and inauthentic use of their service," the EC said. They will also "have to redesign their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security, and safety to minors."
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EU Names 19 Large Tech Platforms That Must Follow Europe's New Internet Rules

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  • And keep business as usual.

    • If the newly named company still has over 45 million users in the EU, then it will be automatically subject to same rules. They would have to split their company into several smaller chunks to avoid the rules (which would be great for the market, but unfortunately unlikely to happen).

      • They would have to split their company into several smaller chunks to avoid the rules

        If keeping regulators off companies' backs would encourage companies to stay medium-size and regional and interact at arm's length through federated Internet protocols, I agree that'd be great for the users. We'd see a rise in things like XMPP, Matrix, ActivityPub, feeds (RSS, Atom, and microformats2 h-entry), Webmention comments, and the like. We would, however, end up with netsplits, as XMPP users have seen with defederation due to spam and as ActivityPub users have seen with defederation due to expressio

    • No sorry doesn't work like that. The Digital Services Act doesn't actually name any company. All the EU did was confirm to 19 platforms that this law applies to them to make it unambiguously clear they are to follow this law.

  • Now we need some EU court rulings telling us what constitutes "disinformation" and "inauthentic" content.

    • I would say we probably won't see that soon. What is required for now is the definition of a company policy and enforcement mechanisms regarding their own risks, which may or may not include misinformation depending on what these companies do (one of them is a clothing retailer, another one a hotel booking website; probably the parts of the regulation about advertisement are more relevant in their case). Those services which have user-provided contents (facebook etc.) will have to hire something like an eth

    • Now we need some EU court rulings telling us what constitutes "disinformation" and "inauthentic" content.

      Exactly!

  • This one seems a little odd to me. Say a new gay bar opens up in a given city in the EU, why should they advertising for that not be allowed? Certainly young gay bar hoppers would like to know about a new gay bar opening, right?

    What if you are a haircare product designer that makes ethnic products. How does banning their ability to buy ads targeting would be buyers help anyone? Seems like that would strip away choices for people of a specific ethnic background that could very well want to see an ad for that

    • by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @05:58PM (#63476516)

      Oh well, I guess the Europeans like being "protected" like this. They voted for it after all.

      Yes indeed. The examples you cite are prohibited in France since 1978 (for the computer part), and some of them since 1945. It comes from the prohibition of keeping files of the population listing their political, sexual, ethnic characteristics, ever since the end of WW2. (Of course as a gay bar, church, political party, you can keep files of your registered members, but as an advertiser you cannot make a files of "people I suspect are gay".)

    • by ektoplasme ( 2783567 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @06:05PM (#63476534)
      Of course free speech is a protected right in the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    • by UpnAtom ( 551727 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2023 @06:15PM (#63476550)

      We have roughly the same constitutional free speech laws as you, just fewer people saying the N-word.

      I imagine that the advertising bans are to reduce the incentive to collect information that Nazis might use against you. We're trying to legalise punching Nazis in the face.

      • >"We have roughly the same constitutional free speech laws as you"

        No, you don't

        • by UpnAtom ( 551727 )

          You can read about it here. This is just the basics that every EU country has to obey. Each EU country can layer extra rights on top.
          We also get proper privacy rights on top. There's no free speech without privacy. Your slave-owning founding fathers forgot about that.

          https://www.echr.coe.int/docum... [coe.int]

          It's so cute that you forgot we invented your rights.

          And we don't have to put up with Nazis either, never mind elect one.

          • We also get proper privacy rights on top. There's no free speech without privacy.

            Free speech and privacy have nothing in common. It's freedom generally that depends on privacy but you wouldn't understand that.

            Your slave-owning founding fathers forgot about that.

            Europeans have owned slaves for thousands of years.

            It's so cute that you forgot we invented your rights.

            Is that why the UK left because they couldn't handle all your freedoms?

            And we don't have to put up with Nazis either

            That's right you don't have to put up with anyone you disagree with.
            LOL.
            Enjoy your freedom of speech...

          • >"You can read about it here. This is just the basics that every EU country has to obey."

            EU countries are jailing people for "offending" each other. That is not freedom of speech.

            >"Each EU country can layer extra rights on top."

            Right, more "offenses" that restrict freedom of speech.

            >"We also get proper privacy rights on top. There's no free speech without privacy."

            That is not true AT ALL. Privacy is important, but freedom of speech is not about privacy.

            >"Your slave-owning founding fathers forg

    • Say a new gay bar opens up in a given city in the EU, why should they advertising for that not be allowed?

      You misunderstand. Advertising is certainly now allowed. What isn't allowed is the likes of Facebook classifying users according to *their* sexual orientation and then presenting them unique content based on this very much legally protected private data.

      You can advertise what you want. But here let me put it in terms Americans will instantly understand: imagine if Facebook compiled a list of who everyone specifically voted for in the last election. Are you up for them allowing advertisers to target you spec

      • Also, not allowed would be a pro or anti gay campaign run by IRA (the Russian troll farm) disguised as a kitten lover group (real life example)

      • Are you up for them allowing advertisers to target you specifically because they know you voted for e.g. Biden? No. In America this is protected information. They can still target you based on more generic terms, but your actual political preference is very much private.

        This is not protected information. It's secret information. A secret you can choose to keep or blab away.

        Whether or not you choose to reveal your secret or leak proxy data that undermines your secret is not at all protected information. There is no duty for anyone to respect these things or refrain from using comments and behaviors to give insights into voting history in order to target you based on how you were likely to vote.

        • This is not protected information. It's secret information.

          Please tell us you don't have a clue without telling us you don't have a clue. Hint: The word "secret" does not appear anywhere in the GDPR legislation.

          Data covered under provisions falls into two categories, personal data, and sensitive personal data, the latter of which is protected with additional special provisions.

          Whether or not you choose to reveal your secret

          Is completely irrelevant. That's all you needed to say. The rest of your post was nonsense.

  • Just to be clear the Digital Services Act doesn't name any companies. It names specific classes of services, and conditions for which that specific service needs to meet for it to apply.

    All the EU did here was tell 19 platforms unambiguously: "Hey, this law applies to you, so don't go bullshitting us later pretending you didn't know."

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