Representatives from science, business and politics see light and shadow in the draft regulations for stricter rules for online platforms presented by the EU Commission on Wednesday. It is nothing less than the plan for “a new version of the legal operating system for digital services,” said the Stuttgart media lawyer Tobias Keber. In terms of its scope, the project could without question keep up with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or the recently reformed Copyright Directive.

On Targeted the core of the business model With specifications such as personalized advertising, recommendation systems and rankings, the initiative aims “at the core of the business model of the attention and surveillance economy”, emphasizes Keber. The structures of data-driven monopolists have partly grown into supporting pillars in the public discourse space. This corresponds to responsibility, which should now be reflected, for example, in stricter liability requirements (“Notice and Action”).

The increased transparency, which has also been brought into play, around everything The professor described algorithms as not a panacea. If a monopolist tells you very transparently which dubious selection criteria he is using, hardly anyone will immediately terminate business contact. This is especially true if there is no comparable alternative. Overall, Keber evaluates the proposal as a “declaration of dependency of cyberspace”, ie as a counter-model to the famous explanation of 1996, with which the activist John Perry Barlow the governability of the Internet by state Rejected actors.

“The new legal framework for digital services and markets is an egg-laying pig of the platform regulation”, the Hamburg media researcher Matthias Kettemann classified the approach. Behind it is “a European network enforcement law, expanded to include transparency obligations, algorithm controls and advertising supervision. It is a solid draft that has what it takes to be an export hit. One drawback is that Ireland, as the European headquarters of corporations such as Google and Facebook, also plays an important role in the The Cologne media lawyer Rolf Schwartmann complained that there are “no effective measures to combat so-called overblocking.” The premature deletion of content by the factual priority of the arbitrary community standards of social networks is not prevented.

Protecting Democracy Federal Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht supported the planned Digital Services Act (DSA): “We have to protect democracy from the poisonous waves protect from hatred, conspiracy tales and lies. In the biggest crisis in decades that we are experiencing with the corona pandemic, this is of fundamental importance for our coexistence. In the case of criminal agitation, we need binding rules across Europe for the platforms with short reaction times – and in serious cases also reporting obligations to the law enforcement authorities

Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier (CDU) was pleased that the Commission wanted to modernize European competition law and put a regulation for digital markets (DMA) up for discussion subject to specific supervision by systemically important actors. In this country, the planned reform of the law against restraints of competition will already impose obligations of conduct on platforms of paramount cross-market importance. The Federal Government will work in the EU process to ensure that national and European rules complement each other well.

The digital association Bitkom welcomed the fact that, with the DSA, the Commission was committed to the basic principles of the free Internet that it 20 years ago with the E -Commerce policy in place. This concerns liability privileges, the prohibition of general surveillance and the country of origin principle. In the important fight against illegal content, however, different platforms should not be scraped together with one regulatory brush. They should be able to choose instruments that are best for them. In competition law, new bans or control instruments should only apply if there is a clear market failure.

Oversized supervision From a ” ambitious surcharge, which adequately reflects the complexity of the topic and the digital market, said the eco-Verband der Internetwirtschaft. However, the function of the planned coordinators for online services seemed oversized: “A supervisory authority with such unlimited scope in combination with such a massive range of penalties could sustainably damage the development of the digital market in the EU. “The consumer association Beuc and the civil rights organization European Digital Rights (EDRi) approved a step in the right direction, which, however, does not yet enable an outbreak of the platform economy.

“The largest platforms have become bigger and bigger in the last few years without getting any better”, explained Andreas Schwab (CDU), internal market expert e of the conservative EPP group in the EU Parliament. It is high time to make them more responsible. The DSA offers the opportunity to finally regulate online trade in Europe fairly. The EPP legal expert Axel Voss added: The planned specifications should help to stop the spread of illegal content and hatred on the Internet.

The proposal only sees transparency requirements for online advertising, said the SPD MP Tiemo Wölken. Parliament had already spoken out in favor of a gradual ban on personalized advertising. As long as platforms made money from it, their algorithms preferred lurid content like fake news and disinformation. In addition, according to the plan, the operators themselves could decide what is illegal and automatically make a deletion decision. This should lead to over-blocking.

An end for the “Wild West” The EU is working on “To put the constitution of the Internet on a modern basis,” said the EU MEP Moritz Körner (FDP). Alexandra Geese, shadow rapporteur for the European Greens, praised the Commission’s attempt to “end the wild west manner of the big online platforms and bring them to account”. But she also misses “a ban on personalized advertising and tracking as well as real interoperability obligations”.

Her parliamentary group colleague Patrick Breyer from the Pirate Party complained that the industry-oriented proposal left “the surveillance capitalist business model of seamless spying and evaluation of Internet use of people untouched “. In addition to upload filters, “cross-border deletion orders without a judicial order with which authoritarian governments could apply their illegal censorship laws across the EU” are a threat to freedom of expression.

The lobbying battle should now pick up further. Google immediately complained that the proposals were apparently aimed “specifically at a handful of companies”. Facebook teased Apple and demanded the involvement of the iPhone manufacturer: They control an entire ecosystem from the device to the app and abuse this power to harm third parties. The head of GMX and Web.de, Jan Oetjen, praised the fact that competition specifications should take effect in the run-up to abuse. Operating systems, app stores and browsers would be required by every service and would have to be neutral. Here it is also important to “finally develop our own European alternatives”.

The LobbyControl initiative warned against unilateral influence of the US Internet giants on the further legislative process. They would “do all they can to prevent their power from being restricted”. A leak shows that Google is proceeding with an aggressive campaign against the initiative. According to the strategy paper, the group wants to campaign to at least weaken the rules and sow doubts about the benefits and legitimacy of the project. YouTubers, for example, should be warned that the DSA threatens their creative freedom.

(mho)