26 Amendments of Victor NEGRESCU related to 2020/0374(COD)
Amendment 60 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 10 a (new)
Recital 10 a (new)
(10 a) Systematic mergers and acquisitions should have a clear and legal threshold to put an end to killer acquisitions where big companies buy start-ups and growing companies in order to supress any possible competition. A special attention should be given to takeovers in important sectors such as health, education, defence and financial services.
Amendment 92 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 52 a (new)
Recital 52 a (new)
(52 a) Interoperability needs to also be ensured for messaging and social media services, providing the users with the possibility to migrate from one platform to another without losing their data and contacts.
Amendment 96 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 54
Recital 54
(54) Gatekeepers benefit from access to vast amounts of data that they collect while providing the core platform services as well as other digital services. To ensure that gatekeepers do not undermine the contestability of core platform services as well as the innovation potential of the dynamic digital sector by restricting the ability of business users to effectively port their data, business users and end users should be granted effective and immediate access to the data they provided or generated in the context of their use of the relevant core platform services of the gatekeeper, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. This should apply also to any other data at different levels of aggregation that may be necessary to effectively enable such portability. It should also be ensured that business users and end users can port that data in real time effectively, such as for example through high quality application programming interfaces. Facilitating switching or multi- homing should lead, in turn, to an increased choice for business users and end users and an incentive for gatekeepers and business users to innovate. These portability rights will provide users with the right to access and transfer their data from the platforms that hold it.
Amendment 103 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 61
Recital 61
(61) The data protection and privacy interests of end users are relevant to any assessment of potential negative effects of the observed practice of gatekeepers to collect and accumulate large amounts of data from end users. Ensuring an adequate level of transparency of profiling practices employed by gatekeepers facilitates contestability of core platform services, by putting external pressure on gatekeepers to prevent making deep consumer profiling the industry standard, given that potential entrants or start-up providers cannot access data to the same extent and depth, and at a similar scale. Enhanced transparency should allow other providers of core platform services to differentiate themselves better through the use of superior privacy guaranteeing facilities. To ensure a minimum level of effectiveness of this transparency obligation, gatekeepers should at least provide a description of the basis upon which profiling is performed, including whether personal data and data derived from user activity is relied on, the processing applied, the purpose for which the profile is prepared and eventually used, the impact of such profiling on the gatekeeper’s services, and the steps taken to enable end users to be aware of the relevant use of such profiling, as well as to seek their consent. If such a consent procedure will not be envisaged the users should be protected from targeted advertising practices as well as commercial tracking and profiling.
Amendment 114 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 2 a (new)
Recital 2 a (new)
(2a) There must be clear and transparent exchange of information between the user and the service provider so that data provided directly and transmitted to third parties or used for advertising purposes and to formulate personalised offers can be effectively checked, verified and filtered by the user, by the service provider's specialised services, and by an authority in every Member State or at European level, as the case may be.
Amendment 116 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 3 a (new)
Recital 3 a (new)
(3a) Common verification, monitoring and checking standards should be established for gatekeepers with a view to maintaining equal treatment at European level and ensuring a level playing field.
Amendment 117 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 3 b (new)
Recital 3 b (new)
(3b) Data collected by platforms could, after being anonymised and made secure, be transmitted, in accordance with specific transparent rules, to competent authorities and research establishments which use that information solely for public service purposes within the limits set by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the provisions on data protection and the right to privacy.
Amendment 121 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 7
Recital 7
(7) Therefore, business users and end- users of core platform services provided by gatekeepers should be afforded appropriate regulatory safeguards throughout the Union against the unfair behaviour of gatekeepers in order to facilitate cross- border business within the Union and thereby improve the proper functioning of the internal market and to address existing or likely emerging fragmentation in the specific areas covered by this Regulation, with the inclusion of a clause entitling users to compensation in situations where their rights are infringed. Moreover, while gatekeepers tend to adopt global or at least pan-European business models and algorithmic structures, they can adopt, and in some cases have adopted, different business conditions and practices in different Member States, which is liable to create disparities between the competitive conditions for the users of core platform services provided by gatekeepers, to the detriment of integration within the internal market.
Amendment 130 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 10 a (new)
Recital 10 a (new)
(10a) There should be clear legal limits on systematic mergers and acquisitions to prevent damaging takeovers where large companies buy start-ups and scale-ups so as to eliminate any potential competition. Particular attention should be paid to major sectors which are digitising at an accelerated pace, such as the health, education, defence, transport and financial services sectors.
Amendment 133 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 12
Recital 12
(12) Weak contestability and unfair practices in the digital sector are more frequent and pronounced forin certain digital services than for others. This is the case in particular for widespread and commonly used digital services that mostly directly intermediate between business users and end users and where features such as extreme scale economies, very strong network effects, an ability to connect many business users with many end users through the multi-sidedness of these services, lock-in effects, a lack of multi- homing or vertical integration are the most prevalent. Often, there is only one or very few large providers of those digital services. These providers of core platform services have emerged most frequently as gatekeepers for business users and end users with far-reaching impacts, gaining the ability to easily set commercial conditions and terms in a unilateral and detrimental manner for their business users and end users, especially in the banking and health sectors. Accordingly, it is necessary to focus only on those digital services that are most broadly used by business users and end users and where, based on current market conditions, concerns about weak contestability and unfair practices by gatekeepers are more apparent and pressing from an internal market perspective.
Amendment 155 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 22 a (new)
Recital 22 a (new)
(22a) The Commission should play a key - but not excessive - role in the way the DSA is managed; while the set of new rules for online business in the EU are essential, the Commission should not become a lawmaking body able to take legal action in this context.
Amendment 158 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 23
Recital 23
(23) Providers of core platform services which meet the quantitative thresholds but are able to present sufficiently substantiated arguments to demonstrate that, in the circumstances in which the relevant core platform service operates, they do not fulfil the objective requirements for a gatekeeper, should not be designated directly, but only subject to a further investigation. The burden of adducing, in a conclusive manner consonant with Europe-wide values and rules, evidence that the presumption deriving from the fulfilment of quantitative thresholds should not apply to a specific provider should be borne by that provider. In its assessment, the Commission should take into account only the elements which directly relate to the requirements for constituting a gatekeeper, namely whether it is an important gateway which is operated by a provider with a significant impact in the internal market with an entrenched and durable position, either actual or foreseeable. Any justification on economic grounds seeking to demonstrate efficiencies deriving from a specific type of behaviour by the provider of core platform services should be discarded, as it is not relevant to the designation as a gatekeeper. The Commission should be able to take a decision by relying on the quantitative thresholds where the provider significantly obstructs the investigation by failing to comply with the investigative measures taken by the Commission.
Amendment 163 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 26
Recital 26
(26) A particular subset of rules should apply to those providers of core platform services that are foreseen to enjoy an entrenched and durable position in the near future. The same specific features of core platform services make them prone to tipping: once a service provider has obtained a certain advantage over rivals or potential challengers in terms of scale or intermediation power, its position may become unassailable and the situation may evolve to the point that it is likely to become durable and entrenched in the near future. Undertakings can try to induce this tipping and emerge as gatekeeper by using some of the unfair conditions and practices regulated in this Regulation. In such a situation, it appearswould be appropriate for there to be predictability and to intervene before the market tips irreversibly.
Amendment 167 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 28 a (new)
Recital 28 a (new)
(28a) Third-country firms providing platforms and services in Europe should be checked in an optimal and regular manner to ensure they are submitting accurate and transparent information.
Amendment 195 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 40
Recital 40
(40) Identification services are crucial for business users to conduct theiroosting the economic activities of all business users, as these can allow them not only to optimise services, to the extent allowed under Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council33 , but also to inject trust in online transactions, in compliance with Union or national law. The competent authorities should pay increased attention to payment identification services. Gatekeepers should therefore not use their position as provider of core platform services to require their dependent business users to include any identification services provided by the gatekeeper itself as part of the provision of services or products by these business users to their end users, where other identification services are available to such business users. _________________ 33Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications) (OJ L 201, 31.7.2002, p. 37).
Amendment 197 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 41
Recital 41
(41) Gatekeepers should not restrict the free choice of end users, who 'pay' with their personal data, by technically preventing switching between or subscription to different software applications and services. Gatekeepers should therefore ensure a free choice irrespective of whether they are the manufacturer of any hardware by means of which such software applications or services are accessed and should not raise artificial technical barriers so as to make switching impossible or ineffective. The mere offering of a given product or service to end users, including by means of pre- installation, as well the improvement of end user offering, such as better prices or increased quality, would not in itself constitute a barrier to switching.
Amendment 204 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 42
Recital 42
(42) The conditions under which gatekeepers provide online advertising services to business users including both advertisers and publishers are often non- transparent and opaque. This opacity is partly linked to the practices of a few platforms, but is also due to the sheer complexity of modern day programmatic advertising. The sector is considered to have become more non-transparent after the introduction of new data privacy legislation, and is expected to become even more opaque with the announced removal of third-party cookies. This often leads to a lack of information and knowledge for advertisers and publishers about the conditions of the advertising services they purchased and undermines their ability to switch to alternative providers of online advertising services. Furthermore, the costs of online advertising are likely to be higher than they would be in a fairer, more transparent and contestable platform environment. These higher costs are likely to be reflected in the prices that end users pay for many daily products and services relying on the use of online advertising. Transparency obligations should therefore require gatekeepers to provide advertisers and publishers to whom they supply online advertising services, when requested and to the extent possible, with information that allows both sides to understand the price paid for each of the different advertising services provided as part of the relevant advertising value chain.
Amendment 205 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 43
Recital 43
(43) A gatekeeper may in certain circumstances have a dual role as a provider of core platform services whereby it provides a core platform service to its business users, while also competing with those same business users in the provision of the same or similar services or products to the same end users. In these circumstances, a gatekeeper may take advantage of its dual role to use data, generated from transactions by its business users on the core platform, especially in the case of banking and health services, for the purpose of its own services that offer similar services to that of its business users. This may be the case, for instance, where a gatekeeper provides an online marketplace or app store to business users, and at the same time offer services as an online retailer or provider of application software against those business users. To prevent gatekeepers from unfairly benefitting from their dual role, it should be ensured that they refrain from using any aggregated or non-aggregated data, which may include anonymised and personal data that is not publicly available to offer similar services to those of their business users. This obligation should apply to the gatekeeper as a whole, including but not limited to its business unit that competes with the business users of a core platform service.
Amendment 214 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 48
Recital 48
(48) Gatekeepers are often vertically integrated and offer certain products or services to end users through their own core platform services, or through a business user over which they exercise control which frequently leads to conflicts of interest. This can include the situation whereby a gatekeeper offers its own online intermediation services through an online search engine. When offering those products or services on the core platform service, gatekeepers can reserve a better position to, differential treatment or preferential treatment for their own offering, in terms of ranking, as opposed to the products of third parties also operating on that core platform service. This can occur for instance with products or services, including other core platform services, which are ranked in the results communicated by online search engines, or which are partly or entirely embedded in online search engines results, groups of results specialised in a certain topic, displayed along with the results of an online search engine, which are considered or used by certain end users as a service distinct or additional to the online search engine. Other instances are those of software applications which are distributed through software application stores, or products or services that are given prominence and display in the newsfeedbenefitting of a social network, or products or services ranked in search results or displayed on an online marketplace. In those circumstances, the gatekeeper is in a dual- role position as intermediary for third party providers and as direct provider of products or services of the gatekeeper. Consequently, these gatekeepers have the ability to undermine directly the contestability for those products or services on these core platform services, to the detriment of business users which are not controlled by the gatekeeper.
Amendment 216 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 49
Recital 49
(49) In such situations, the gatekeeper should not engage in any form of differentiated or preferential treatment in ranking on the core platform service, whether through legal, commercial or technical means, in favour of products or services it offers itself or through a business user which it controls. To ensure that this obligation is effective, it should also be ensured that the conditions that apply to such ranking are also generally fair and should not apply, encourage, instigate, contribute to or consent to or facilitate any form of discrimination. Ranking should in this context cover all forms of relative prominence, including display, rating, linking or voice results. To ensure that this obligation is effective and cannot be circumvented it should also apply to any measure that may have an equivalent effect to the differentiated or preferential treatment in ranking. The guidelines adopted pursuant to Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 should also facilitate the implementation and enforcement of this obligation.34 . _________________ 34Commission Notice: Guidelines on ranking transparency pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ C 424, 8.12.2020, p. 1).
Amendment 228 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 52 a (new)
Recital 52 a (new)
(52a) Similarly, interoperability should be ensured for messaging and social media services, providing the users with the possibility of moving from one platform to another without losing their data and contacts. Equally, users should be able to decide unilaterally, by means of a simple procedure, to newsfeed their data, save their history or completely delete their data from the messaging or social media service platform.
Amendment 232 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 54
Recital 54
(54) Gatekeepers benefit from access to vast amounts of data that they collect while providing the core platform services as well as other digital services. To ensure that gatekeepers do not undermine the contestability of core platform services as well as the innovation potential of the dynamic digital sector by restricting the ability of business users to effectively port their data, business users and end users should be granted effective and immediate access to the data they provided or generated in the context of their use of the relevant core platform services of the gatekeeper, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. This should apply also to any other data at different levels of aggregation that may be necessary to effectively enable such portability. It should also be ensured that business users and end users can port that data in real time effectively, such as for example through high quality application programming interfaces. Facilitating switching or multi- homing should lead, in turn, to an increased choice for business users and end users and an incentive for gatekeepers and business users to innovate. These portability rights would afford users the possibility of accessing and anonymise their data to different platforms.
Amendment 239 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 56
Recital 56
(56) The value of online search engines to their respective business users and end users increases as the total number of such users increases. Providers of online search engines collect and store aggregated datasets containing information about what users searched for, and how they interacted with, the results that they were served. Providers of online search engine services collect these data from searches undertaken on their own online search engine service and, where applicable, searches undertaken on the platforms of their downstream commercial partners. Access by gatekeepers to such ranking, query, click and view data constitutes an important barrier to entry and expansion, which undermines the contestability of online search engine services. Gatekeepers should therefore be obliged to provide access, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, to these ranking, query, click and view data in relation to free and paid search generated by consumers on online search engine services to other providers of such services, so that these third-party providers can optimise their services and contest the relevant core platform services. Such access should also be given to third parties contracted by a search engine provider, who are acting as processors of this data for that search engine. When providing access to its search data, a gatekeeper shouldneeds to ensure the protection of the personal data of end users by appropriate means, without substantially degrading the quality or usefulness of the data.
Amendment 244 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 57
Recital 57
(57) In particular gatekeepers which provide access to software application stores serve as an important gateway for business users that seek to reach end users. In view of the imbalance in bargaining power between those gatekeepers and business users of their software application stores, those gatekeepers should not be allowed to impose general conditions, including pricing conditions, that would be unfair or lead to unjustified differentiation. Pricing or other general access or treatment conditions should be considered unfair if they lead to an imbalance of rights and obligations imposed on business users or confer an advantage on the gatekeeper which is disproportionate to the service provided by the gatekeeper to business users or lead to a disadvantage for business users in providing the same or similar services as the gatekeeper. The following benchmarks can serve as a yardstick to determine the fairness of general access conditions: prices charged or conditions imposed for the same or similar services by other providers of software application stores; prices charged or conditions imposed by the provider of the software application store for different related or similar services or to different types of end users; prices charged or conditions imposed by the provider of the software application store for the same service in different geographic regions; prices charged or conditions imposed by the provider of the software application store for the same service the gatekeeper offers to itself. This obligation should not establish an access right and it should be without prejudice to the ability of providers of software application stores to take the required responsibility in the fight against illegal and unwanted content as set out in Regulation [Digital Services Act].
Amendment 257 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 61
Recital 61
(61) The data protection and privacy interests of end users are relevant to any assessment of potential negative effects of the observed practice of gatekeepers to collect and accumulate large amounts of data from end users. Ensuring an adequate level of transparency of profiling practices employed by gatekeepers facilitates contestability of core platform services, by putting external pressure on gatekeepers to prevent making deep consumer profiling the industry standard, given that potential entrants or start-up providers cannot access data to the same extent and depth, and at a similar scale. Enhanced transparency should allow other providers of core platform services to differentiate themselves better through the use of superior privacy guaranteeing facilities. To ensure a minimum level of effectiveness of this transparency obligation, gatekeepers should at least provide a description of the basis upon which profiling is performed, including whether personal data and data derived from user activity is relied on, the processing applied, the purpose for which the profile is prepared and eventually used, the impact of such profiling on the gatekeeper’s services, and the steps taken to enable end users to be aware of the relevant use of such profiling, as well as to seek their consent. In cases where no such consent procedure is envisaged, users should be protected against targeted advertising practices as well as commercial tracking and profiling.
Amendment 272 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 70 a (new)
Recital 70 a (new)
(70a) It should likewise be possible for the responsible institutions, competent authorities and all the relevant bodies in each Member State to forward to the Commission any information which might be relevant in this context.