The European Parliament proceeded to the final vote, this Tuesday, July 5, 2022, on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), two pieces of legislation that are intended to be a turning point in digital regulation of the European market.
The DSA was adopted on Tuesday by 539 votes for, 54 against and 30 abstentions and the DMA by 588 votes for, 11 against and 31 abstentions. This vote comes following the agreements reached respectively between the Parliament and the Council on March 24 and April 23, but certain details remained to be settled.
For Christel Schaldemose, rapporteur for the DSA, “for too long the tech giants have taken advantage of the absence of rules. The digital world has become a Wild West where the strongest and the biggest set the rules. (…) From now on, the rules and the rights are reinforced,” she declared. “The objective of the digital single market is for Europe to welcome the best companies, not just the biggest ones,” added Adreas Schwab, rapporteur for the DMA.
With these new laws, companies are subject to fines of up to 10% of their annual turnover for violations of the DMA and up to 6% for violations of the DSA.
A list of prohibitions and obligations to be enforced
Faced with “too big to care” digital giants, these two pieces of legislation lay down unprecedented prohibitions and obligations to limit their abuse of power.
The DMA sets obligations for large online platforms that act as “gatekeepers” (access controllers), which will in particular make their messaging services interoperable and provide business users with access to their data. These gatekeepers will no longer be allowed to practice auto-favoritism at the expense of third parties on their platforms.
The DSA sets obligations for digital service providers, in particular in the fight against illegal content and online disinformation. These obligations will be proportional to the size of the platforms concerned, says the text. The law also prohibits certain types of targeted advertising, in particular aimed at children.
Finally, the very large online platforms and search engines (with more than 45 million monthly users) will have to comply with stricter obligations to prevent systemic risks. The text also obliges them to authorize access to their data and their algorithms for researchers.
The texts will be officially adopted by the Council in July (DMA) and September (DSA). Moreover, it will be necessary to go through several stages before the DSA and the DMA are applied. The DSA will be applicable in the EU on 1er January 2024 at the latest. Regarding the DMA, it will apply six months after its entry into force. Companies identified as “gatekeepers” will have a maximum of six months to comply with the new obligations.
Commission control
To control the application of the texts, the Commission sees itself allotting new powers of investigation and sanction. “For the first time, the European Commission will become the supervisor of gatekeepers and very large online platforms and search engines,” declared the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, in a tweet this Tuesday.
He gives more details on how these investigations will unfold in an article dedicated to how the Commission will deal with these matters. Thierry Breton specifies in particular that specialized teams from the Commission will provide centralized monitoring of very large platforms and search engines. Each platform will therefore have to have a legal representative in Europe to be able to be questioned by the Commission.
On the other hand, it will be up to the regulator of each Member State to enforce these rules. “Orders sent by national public authorities will be more effective in tackling illegal content and obtaining information on the culprit, particularly across borders,” said Thierry Breton.