The Blog of the European Association for Digital Transition
The news that New York City was filing a lawsuit against various social media companies including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube appeared in the media and then quickly disappeared. At first glance, it may seem like a complaint doomed to failure. Nevertheless, that is not so.
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The Spanish Constitutional Court has just endorsed, in a judgment on June 27, 2022, what is known as the ‘right to be forgotten’, declaring previous decisions in regard to this by the Supreme Court and the National High Court to be unconstitutional. Thus, the Constitutional Court has positioned itself in support of arguments made by the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD), which in turn protected a Spanish businessperson affected by negative comments published in the United States and accessible via the Google search engine.
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In all industries, the digitalisation process is unstoppable. And it’s been the same in the written press, which has adapted its models and structures for the online market with great effort and speed. Each day, as an essential pillar of democracy, the media provides information in compliance with the rights to give and receive information proclaimed in Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution.
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Without the free rein they had a few years ago in terms of control over data, the big tech companies have long been working on the concept of ‘privacy’, which has also become a marketing tool. Apple has taken this dispute very seriously, and in early June introduced a new concept on privacy for the clients of its cloud service, iCloud. It’s called Private Relay.
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Various events are being held this week to celebrate World Consumer Rights Day, a day in which civil society and regulators defend the rights of citizens-consumers. This year, the date takes on a special relevance. This is because it is being held in the midst of major discussions within the European institutions that are designing one of the most important regulatory frameworks for the coming years, that is, the ‘Digital Acts’ regulatory package: DSA, DMA, and DGA.
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March 15 marks World Consumer Rights Day, a commemoration established by the United Nations in 1983. The choice of March 15 comes from a speech delivered on that day in 1962 by John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Speaking at the United States Congress, the then U.S. president defined the consumer as an essential element in the production process, recognising their political relevance and urging institutions to protect their rights.
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It’s no surprise the Silicon Valley tech giants are paying close attention to regulatory activity in the European Union. As of March 2015, when then-Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced the Digital Single Market, Europe has been setting a distinct profile in its conception of digitalization, a profile that is increasingly uncomfortable for the so-called Big Five or GAFAM – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. Some of the issues the Commission is prioritising through the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act are potentially very dangerous for the business model of companies like Google and Facebook. And we’re talking about a market of more than 450 million people.
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The European Union has finalized a draft of its new Digital Services Act (DSA), which, according to all indications, will place restrictions on and control more closely the activity of large technology companies. There is even talk of forcing them to share their data with smaller companies and prohibiting them from applying any kind of preferential treatment for their products on their own platforms. All this is in the midst of a growing debate, also in the United States, about the excessive size and power of these companies and the possibility of forcing them to be split up to restore competition in the markets where they abuse their dominance.
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For years, the big American technology companies have grown without too many regulatory impediments to the point of becoming global mastodons. Thanks to attractive products and services that respond to market demand, with loose or directly non-existent regulations in some areas, and wrapped in the American dream aura of the entrepreneur in their garage who becomes a billionaire, the big Silicon Valley companies have achieved such a powerful market position that many consider them de facto monopolies.
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When the history of the big technology companies in the twenty-first century is written, the date of July 29, 2020, might have its place. On that day, the four CEOs of the ‘Big Tech’ Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Apple appeared before the United States House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee, whose members have been investigating their alleged anti-competitive practices for years.
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