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European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager also
proposed new powers for enforcers to tackle market failures in
digital markets and to stop new ones from emerging.
Under the proposed Digital Services Act, online platforms will
have to check sellers' identities before they can use their
services in a move aimed at countering illegal and dangerous
content.
The tech companies will have to produce reports on their actions
and inform users who pays for the advertisements that they see
and why they have been targeted by certain adverts, Vestager
said.
The second set of rules called the Digital Markets Act is
targeted at online gatekeepers.
"That proposal will have two pillars," Vestager told a European
Policy Center event.
"The first of those pillars will be a clear list of dos and
don'ts for big digital gatekeepers, based on our experience with
the sorts of behaviour that can stop markets working well."
Practices not allowed include pushing one's own services, known
as unfair self-preferencing, making it difficult for users to
switch platforms or to use more than one service.
Vestager said the second pillar of the Digital Markets Act was
to set up a harmonised market investigation framework across the
27-country bloc.
"That would give us a harmonised set of rules that would allow
us to investigate certain structural problems in digital markets
and, if necessary, we could take action to make these markets
contestable and competitive," she said.
Vestager will announce the new draft rules on Dec. 2. She will
need to reconcile her proposal with those from EU countries and
the European Parliament before it can become legislation.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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