Google breached EU antitrust law by hampering rivals from placing search advertisements on websites, the European Commission said. It fined the company 1.49 billion euros, the third time it slapped massive penalties on Google for abusive behavior. The almost $1.7 billion fine takes account of the seriousness and long duration of Google's actions (2006-2016), said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager at a Wednesday briefing. She acknowledged the company has made positive changes to its conduct related to Search and Android. Google said it will continue to give rivals more visibility.
Dugie Standeford
Dugie Standeford, European Correspondent, Communications Daily and Privacy Daily, is a former lawyer. She joined Warren Communications News in 2000 to report on internet policy and regulation. In 2003 she moved to the U.K. and since then has covered European telecommunications issues. She previously covered the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and intellectual property law matters. She has a degree in psychology from Duke University and a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law.
Last week's terrorist attack in New Zealand puts more pressure on lawmakers to regulate online platforms, some experts said. Even before that, 70-80 proposals for regulating platforms were under consideration globally, Hogan Lovells preliminarily found in an ongoing six-month survey. Early results show "by far the most proposals we tracked come from the government," emailed Hogan Lovells (Brussels) competition lawyer Falk Schoening.
Modifications to EU copyright law moved forward Tuesday as the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee approved a compromise hammered out in "trilogue" talks among the EU, Council and Parliament. The deal, reached Feb. 13 (see 1902130059), now needs approval from the full parliament, expected to vote in March or April. The fierce lobbying provoked by several provisions -- Article 11, which creates a new right for news publishers, and Article 13, adding copyright-policing responsibilities on content-sharing platforms -- continued after the committee vote. “The text, as agreed in Trilogue, would modernise copyright with a proportionate approach that does not stifle digital innovation,” said the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association, European Magazine Media Association, European Publishers’ Council and News Media Europe. They pressed EU lawmakers to "vote in support of Europe's vital cultural and media landscape." The copyright system was established "in the infancy of the internet" when platforms could exploit content created and produced by others without permission or payment, said the Federation of European Publishers: To perpetuate that system would be unfair. European Digital Rights relaunched SaveYourInternet.eu, which it said has become "the main platform for concerned citizens who want to contact EU policy makers about the proposed implementation of upload filters." It urged Europeans to "consider parliamentarians' stance on Article 13 when voting for the European Parliament election in May." It's unclear "whether further lobbying of [European Parliament members] results in any of the controversial provisions being excised" at the final plenary stage, emailed Hogan Lovells (London) IP attorney Alastair Shaw.
Negotiators agreed on an EU copyright update. The draft, the focus of intense lobbying, would give news publishers a right covering digital use and require online content-sharing platforms get license for copyright-protected works uploaded by users, the EU Council said Wednesday. Those provisions, Articles 11 and 13 respectively, are controversial (see 1901250001). It's "a worrying version of Article 11 ... and the most negative version of Article 13," said Member of European Parliament Julia Reda, of Germany and the Greens/European Free Alliance. The compromise "goes beyond any text the Parliament has previously agreed to by including even small businesses on the controversial upload filter provision," which lawmakers' version excluded, she said. Article 13 now mirrors a French-German deal to force all for-profit sites and apps where users may share content to install upload filters, with narrow exemptions, said Reda. The agreement is a "step backward" but not the end of the road, she said: It needs final approval from governments and the European Parliament. The Computer & Communications Industry Association opposed Articles 11 and 13, and said Wednesday 11, which introduces the new right known as the "snippet tax," risks restricting the freedom of online quotation. Article 13 "weakens existing EU legal protections for Internet services," CCIA said. The draft sets mandatory exceptions to copyright for text- and data-mining, online teaching activities and preservation and online dissemination of cultural heritage; and provides for harmonized rules to make it easier to exploit out-of-commerce works, issue collective licenses, and clear rights for films by VOD platforms, the Council said. It enshrines authors' and performers' right to receive appropriate, proportionate remuneration when their rights are licensed or transferred. The European Consumer Organisation called this a "disappointing outcome for consumers" that will make it much harder for them to share their own noncommercial music, video or photo creations online: "This reform is not based on the reality of how people use the internet." The European Magazine Media Association, European Newspaper Publishers' Association, European Publishers Council and News Media Europe urged Parliament "to endorse the text, as soon as possible." In the U.S., the News Media Alliance likewise wants "swift adoption by the Council and the Parliament of the final Directive to secure the sustainability of high-quality journalism in Europe."
Efforts by major internet players to remove illegal online hate speech won high marks from the European Commission Monday. Dailymotion, Google Plus, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, jeuxvideos.com, Microsoft, Snapchat and Twitter agreed to be bound by a 2016 code of conduct aimed at stopping proliferation of racist and xenophobic hate speech online, the EC said. EU law defines illegal hate speech as public incitement to violence or hatred directed to groups or individuals on the basis of characteristics such as race, color, religion, or national origin. Companies must review such content within 24 hours of being notified and remove it if necessary, while respecting the right of freedom of speech. The EC's latest review found that around 89 percent of notifications are assessed within 24 hours. On average, the companies are taking down nearly 72 percent of hate speech notified to them, and they're consistently and scrupulously gauging whether content falls within that category, it said. One area needs more work, the report found: information users are given on what happens to their notices of illegal hate speech. Facebook is "the only platform that provides systematic feedback to all users while the other platforms do not yet reach these levels," it said. Twitter is reviewing 88 percent of all notifications within 24 hours, emailed Director-Public Policy for Europe Karen White: The company has boosted its safety policies, tightened reporting systems and "introduced over 70 changes to improve conversational health." Twitter is "doing this with a sense of urgency," she added. "There is always more we can do to tackle hate speech." Facebook and Instagram are "delighted" to be part of the code of conduct, a Facebook spokesperson emailed.
The general data protection regulation must be defended but also needs honest evaluation, a Wednesday Computers, Privacy & Data Protection conference heard, livestreamed from Brussels. GDPR has been in effect for eight months, and the European Commission is monitoring what countries are doing and how well people understand their rights, said Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Commissioner Vera Jourova. "We have to start differentiating between consumers and citizens" to ensure personal data isn't used in the political process for targeting people and spreading fake news, she said. The EC plans a conference in June to assess GDPR costs and benefits. There have been improvements in awareness and data processing, but more cooperation is needed among data protection authorities, said Marit Hansen, data protection commissioner of Land Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. The regulation is "slowly developing its potential" and its "teething problems" will be solved sooner rather than later, she said. GDPR faces two big threats -- avoidance and denial -- but it must be defended because of its link with democracy, said Gloria Gonzalez Fuster, of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Six EU governments haven't implemented it, and some like Poland lack money and resources to do so, said Member of the European Parliament Michal Boni, of the European People's Party and Poland. European Digital Rights is concerned about rule "flexibilities," said Anna Fielder, senior policy adviser with the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, speaking for EDRi. This includes language that lets political parties process personal data without explicit consent, which is happening in the U.K., Spain and Romania, she said. The EC is creating a European culture of privacy out of different national rules and processes, said Renate Nikolay, Jourova's head of cabinet. Europe is the "first mover" in privacy and will lead the global standard if it can make the law work uniformly, she said. Some aspects have worked, said Google Public Policy Manager Lanah Kammourieh Donnelly: It has led many businesses to boost processes and products, with Google having 500-plus people, many in Europe, working on privacy. But the harmonization the regulation aimed for hasn't happened, and more work is needed on standards, she said.
Talks on updating EU copyright law for the digital age stalled as 11 countries balked over several provisions, including creating a news "publisher's right" (Article 11) and making internet platforms liable for infringing content uploaded by users (Article 13). Government representatives "could not agree on the revised text" floated by the Romanian Presidency before a Jan. 21 "trilogue" between the European Commission, Council and Parliament, a diplomatic official said.
U.S. efforts on Privacy Shield are welcome, but the EU still has concerns, the European Data Protection Board said Thursday after EDPB's Tuesday-Wednesday meeting. Among positive steps are changes to the initial certification process, own-initiative oversight and enforcement actions, publication of key documents such as decisions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, appointment of new members to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the appointment of a permanent ombudsman. President Donald Trump Jan. 18 nominated Keith Krach undersecretary of state for growth, energy and the environment (see 1901230051). EDPB said remaining issues include a "lack of concrete assurances" about indiscriminate collection and access of personal data for national security purposes, and questions whether the ombudsman has sufficient powers to remedy noncompliance with the trans-Atlantic data transfer regime. EDPB said checks for compliance with PS principles aren't strong enough. A December European Commission review found many improvements but warned the agreement could be shut down if no permanent ombudsman is in place by Feb. 28 (see 1812190002). The Computer & Communications Industry Association on Thursday urged the Senate to "expedite confirming the ombudsman."
Plans for a pan-EU digital single market (DSM) are unlikely to be finalized during the current term of the European Commission and Parliament, and when completed may not have the desired effect, stakeholders told us. While the EU institutions have agreed to 23 of the 30 measures proposed for creating the DSM, several contentious issues remain to be resolved. The EC added additional initiatives outside the DSM that, combined with moves by the European Parliament to push DSM initiatives more toward consumer protection, could change the direction, said Inline Policy consultant Shomik Panda, who focuses on platform regulation and policy.
Google is "using scare tactics" to lobby against the "publisher's right" being discussed in the proposed EU copyright directive, the News Media Alliance said Friday. Article 11 would give news publishers a new right to seek remuneration when their content is used by sharing platforms and news aggregators (see 1809120001). Google's "Together for Copyright" campaign says the language proposed by the European Parliament, one of the versions under consideration in "trialogue" talks between the European Commission, Parliament and Council, "may cause services like YouTube and Google Search to limit the variety of content they feature" and could leave them no choice but to "block existing and newly uploaded videos" in the EU with unknown or disputed copyright information to avoid liability. The alliance slammed Google for launching a coordinated effort against the provision so it could continue to use news content for free. Under the parliamentary version, Google wouldn't have to publish or pay for content, nor would it have to seek licenses from publishers, the alliance said: It would give news publishers more options when deciding how to make content available online. "Unlike Google's recommendation to let publishers waive their right to protect their content online, the Parliament's version ... would create certainty and remove the guess work" for publishers and companies that want to use new content online for commercial purposes by setting a new standard, the alliance said. The next trialogue meeting is Jan. 21, a diplomatic official said. Google didn't comment.