- No walk in the park: DSA on the home stretch
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Next Thursday, the Digital Services Act (DSA), the second major project under the French Council Presidency after the Digital Markets Act (DMA), is to be discussed in the final trilogue. Two topics, in particular, are still occupying the negotiators – with an uncertain outcome. Falk Steiner analyzes the two stumbling blocks.
Following the dispute over the climate taxonomy, a conflict is now brewing over the “social” taxonomy. The issue at stake is whether the EU Commission can classify the manufacture of weapons as a socially sustainable investment. Ella Joyner has investigated the question of what a classification as socially harmful would mean in concrete terms.
Yesterday, the ambassadors of the EU member states approved the Council’s positioning on the creation of green government bonds. With so-called green bonds, the EU can finance sustainable investments.
Oliver Süme finds the fundamental regulatory course that is currently being set in the digital world “simply insane”. As Chairman of the Board of the Internet Industry Association ECO, Süme has been dealing with legal issues relating to the Internet since 1998, as you can read in the Profile.
Lisa-Martina Klein
Feature
Not child’s play: DSA is on the home stretch
The main sticking points before the trilogue are two issues that have not yet been finally resolved: first, the issue of dark patterns, for which the French Council Presidency has firmly promised a solution in the DSA in the course of the negotiations on the Digital Markets Act. And secondly, the Parliament’s express wish for better protection of minors from behavioral advertising – so-called tracking.
The same problem is inherent in both situations: There are actually already regulations that should sanction the behavior of providers. For example, Article 8 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Article 6 already prohibit the data processing of minors as a rule, as long as their legal guardians do not give their consent. And the method known as Dark Patterns, which uses visual nudging to extract consent from users in line with the provider’s interests, is already covered by the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the GDPR as a likely misleading practice.
However, there is a massive enforcement deficit in both areas: In the case of dark patterns, the current system of cease-and-desist orders and subsequent court action is too slow to allow providers to prohibit their use in a timely manner. In addition, slight changes to the challenged variant can lead to the need for another, new, and also often lengthy procedure.
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