Officials across Europe on Tuesday unveiled legislation that would give regulators sweeping new powers to take on US tech giants, threatening huge fines and raising the prospect of breakups or bans for repeat offenders.
“The two proposals serve one purpose: to make sure that we, as users, have access to a wide choice of safe products and services online. And that businesses operating in Europe can freely and fairly compete online just as they do offline,” Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner leading the charge on tech issues, said in a statement. The United Kingdom, which left the European Union earlier this year, is also getting in on the act. Tech companies that fail to remove or limit the spread of illegal content will face fines of up to 10% of their annual sales under rules proposed on Tuesday. “Europe is again out front in the world and taking fairly dramatic action on the tech regulation front far beyond what any other country or region… is contemplating or pursuing,” said Thomas Vinje, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance based in Brussels. Companies that don’t follow the proposed EU content policies could be fined up to 6% of global revenues, and repeat offenders could see their platforms temporarily banned. Existing powers to levy antitrust fines of up to 10% of global revenues will be extended to more areas, and in the future offenders could be forced to sell parts of their business if they continue to break the rules. Tech companies are expected to push back strongly against the proposals. “We look forward to working with EU policy makers to help ensure that the proposals meet the stated goals so that Europeans continue to reap all the benefits of digital products and services,” the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that represents Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Google, said in a statement.
