Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments May 15, 2020 erstellt
Description:
The paper assesses the effects of the E-Commerce Directive which plays a key role in the development of online platforms in Europe and, on that basis, proposes some reforms for the forthcoming Digital Services Act. The paper shows that the country of origin principle is the greatest successes of the E-commerce Directive and should be maintained in the forthcoming Digital Services Act. It could even be extended to cover the online platforms which are not established in the EU but provide their services to EU customers, for instance by requiring the designation of a representative in the EU. However, to be accepted and effective, this ‘passport system’ requires trust between Member States and their citizens that the regulation in the country of origin is sufficiently protective and effectively enforced.The puzzle of rules applicable to online platforms and their enforcement mechanisms should also be made more coherent and effective, in particular by improving the baseline liability regime of online platforms and by strengthening the regulation of online advertising. The new rules imposed by the Audio-visual Media Services Directive on the video-sharing platforms are a good starting point and could be generalised to others types of online platforms.The paper also proposes that the new law: (1) prescribes strong, swift and scalable remedies against over-removal of legitimate content, including through an external Alternative Dispute Resolution to incentivize better internal quality review; (2) sets concrete incentives for high-quality notification and review process by means of elaborate rules developed through technical standardization in different areas; (3) clarifies the passivity criterion by linking it to editorial choices and thereby avoiding discouragement of voluntary preventive measures; (4) includes a set of new safe harbours, at least for hyperlinks, search engines and domain name authorities; and (5) creates an EU-wide legal basis for targeted measures (preventive or corrective) responding to the risks posed by the hosting providers provided that the evidence suggests a failure the notice and takedown process and that they remain compliant with the no monitoring obligation and fundamental rights.Smart regulatory techniques such as self- and co-regulation should continue to be encouraged given the rapid and uncertain market evolution as well as the exponential increase of online content. However, to respect our EU values, in particular human rights and rule of law, better safeguards need to be set up: Codes of conduct should be accepted by the main stakeholders representing all the interested parties and values and that their implementation should be regularly monitored in a transparent and independent manner