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The European Union discusses the creation of a new legislation that could significantly affect big tech companies, such as Google and Facebook. European Union lawmakers are in the process of developing a new regulatory rules for the digital space. The Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act are proposals that will represent new set of rules applicable to European Union member countries and will be responsible for creating a more secure and balanced digital environment.

The main objectives of these two legislative initiatives are to create a safer digital space, where the fundamental rights of users are properly protected, and to establish a level playing field to promote innovation, growth and competitiveness, both at the level of the European Union and for the international market.

The lawmakers working on the development of this digital space regulation have informed the Financial Times[1] that the aforementioned future laws may be amended as they go through the European Parliament to include aspects of the Australian reforms on the subject.

Among the alleged potential changes are: the possibility of compulsory arbitration for the licensing of agreements, and the requirement for companies to inform publishers about changes in how they organize the shared content.

However, the most innovative possibility of inclusion in the regulation would be the imposition on large technological platforms to pay for the publication of news, following the Australian position.

The future Australian law, which still needs Senate approval, establishes that digital platforms, such as Google and Facebook, when publishing news will have to pay media companies responsible for making the content shared, in addition to creating a prerogative to media companies to bargain individually or collectively with digital platforms regarding the value of their content to be publish.

[1] Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/4c40c890-afd3-40a3-9582-78a66c37a8af.