It might be interesting to add that during this round of discharge reports,
there have been several statements for the use of open source software.
It is partly reported here:
Besides the European Parliament (full text in [1]) there was also similar
statements for the Ombudsman [2]. Court of Auditors [3], European Data
Protection Supervisor [4] and European External Action Service [5]
[1]
Den fre 29 maj 2020 kl 12:22 skrev Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com>gt;:
tl;dr
We have an updated work programme by the Commission: Digital Services Act
will be proposed by the end of the year, but the Artificial Intelligence
dossier is being pushed back and is now expected first half of 2021.
Meanwhile the European Parliament is gathering input from MEPs on both
these topics in an array of non-binding reports.
This and previous reports on Meta-Wiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
======
Digital Services Act (DSA)
---
Back on track: Contrary to what your Wikimedia Brussels team was sure and
certain of, the Digital Serves Act timeline won’t be postponed, according
to the adjusted Commission Work Programme presented this week. [1] Despite
the fact that we are still waiting for the consultation to be published,
which was originally supposed to happen early May and is expected next week
now, Commissioner Breton and associates still want to have a legislative
proposal out in time by the end of this year.
---
Meanwhile in the Parliament: The last of a number of own initiative draft
reports on the DSA was published by Kris Peeters (EPP BE) in the Civil
Liberties committee (LIBE). [2] Petters supports “limited liability for
content and the country of origin principle”, key components of the current
regime under the e-Commerce Directive. However he suggests that harmful
content, as opposed to only illegal content, should be addressed.
---
Meanwhile in Parliament II: Last month’s Monitoring Report already talked
about the other two parliamentary draft reports, by Alex Saliba (S&D MT) in
the Internal Market committee (IMCO) and by Tiemo Wölken (S&D DE) in the
Legal Affairs committee (JURI). [3] The MEPs and their staff are now
parsing through hundreds of amendments on these (non-binding) reports.
[4][5] Votes are expected in September. Some key questions include:
*Should harmful content be included in the scope?
*Should there be extra rules for some, more dominant platforms?
*Should these extra rules be for platforms that are “dominant”,
“systemic”, “which significant network effects”, “holding a significant
gatekeeper role”. [6]
*Should platforms that moderate content enjoy liability protections? (They
now risk losing it.)
On the other hand, it seems that almost everyone sees the need for some
sort of notice and action procedures for content removal to be enshrined.
======
Artificial Intelligence: The consultation on Artificial Intelligence is
due in a couple of weeks. Several of you already contributed (mille
grazie!). [7] We are having a call Monday, 1 June, at 15:00 CEST to polish
our answers to the Commission survey. Ping me if you like to join!
======
Data Strategy: The Commission is asking about things like “data
altruism”, “data for the public good” and data “donations”. All these terms
are crucial to the interpretation of the questions and their answers and,
of course, there are no where defined. We called the Commission out on
this, submitted a position on “quality requirements for High-Value
Datasets” (which was asked about as such sets should become open as per
Open Data Directive). We also gave examples of data being already gathered
and used for the public good and a few ideas what potential “data trustees”
could look like. We, of course, didn’t forget to repeat our “Carthago
delenda est” a.k.a. “No new IP rights!” Our final submissions are now
linked on the Meta-Wiki page of the consultation. [8]
======
Competition Consultation: [9][10]
One of the European Commission’s main objectives for the current
legislative is regulating platforms. The Digital Services Act is an
important but not the only one part of this endeavor, as the EC’s
Vice-President Margrethe Vestager seems to be set to solving some of the
problems through competition mechanisms. It is in fact good news, as
pushing everything that relates to dominant platforms into a Digital Single
Market regulation may be limiting to solve issues that have little to do
with the common market area and a lot to do with how powerful some actors
have become.
The EC plans to evaluate a 1997 Notice on market definition[9], a set of
binding guidelines used to define what's the "market" a business operates
in. This is a crucial step in determining things such as whether a business
has a large or small market share, whether a business is dominant, or
whether a merger would reduce competition and cause harm.
The process has started with gathering of feedback on the scope and
rationale of the evaluation. Both the Wikimedia Foundation and Free
Knowledge Advocacy Group submitted responses underlining the need to
evaluate the notice as to its adequacy for the digital sphere and markets.
The analysis of a relevant market should be centered around user behaviour
and how the results of examining that behaviour can be integrated in the
market definition. You can check both responses on a dedicated meta
page[10] or on the EC’s website[11][12].
We will be following this process as the next step is consultation on the
Notice planned to start in the second quarter of 2020[13]. If you would
like to be involved in drafting the consultation response, let us know!
======
[1]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/cwp-2020-adjusted-annexes_en.pdf
[2]https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/LIBE-PR-650509_EN.pdf
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/publicpolicy/2020-April/002002.html
[4]
https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?lang=&…
[5]
https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?lang=&…
[
6]https://twitter.com/Kirst3nF/status/1265985306144256000
[7]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Consultation_on_the_White_Paper_o…
[8]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Consultation_on_a_European_Strate…
[9]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1586343289199&uri=C…
[10]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/consultations/Feedback_Notice_on_…
[11]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/1…
[12]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/1…
[13]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/1…
======
END
======
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