Technology companies face billions in fines under EU content rules

The world’s biggest technology companies could face billions of dollars in fines for breaches of new European Union legislation. The landmark Digital Services Act is the EU’s answer to what it sees as a failure by tech giants to combat illegal content on their platforms. Noncompliance could cost companies as much as 6 per cent of their global annual sales when the rules go into effect as early as 2024.

Failures could be extremely costly. Based on their reported 2021 annual sales, Amazon, for instance, could face a theoretical fine of as much as 26 billion euros ($28 billion) for future noncompliance with the DSA, or Google as much 14 billion euros.

Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen said the DSA could represent a “global gold standard” for regulating it.

All websites will be accountable to the DSA, but platforms with more than 45 million users will have to abide by stricter rules such as paying Brussels a supervisory fee of as much as 0.1 per cent of their global annual revenue to enforce the law, and providing regulators with annual reports about illegal and harmful content on a their sites.

An agreement on the text of the DSA will be the second major piece of legislation in Brussels’ digital rulebook to be cemented in a month. On March 24, the EU finalized its Digital Markets Act, a related framework that requires “gatekeepers” to adhere to strict antitrust rules.

Both laws were designed to address market dominance and internet safety. But while the previously-announced DMA targets about a dozen major, mostly US-based tech companies, the DSA sets basic standards for all.