Amazon, Google, Meta and more fall under strict EU rules

Platforms can no longer act as if they are 'too big to care', says Breton

Amazon, Google, Meta and more fall under strict EU rules

Nineteen tech firms, including Amazon, Microsoft and Google, will be subject to stricter regulation and hefty fines in the EU later this year.

All the companies on the list have more than 45 million monthly active users in the European Union.

That means they are subject to the Digital Services Act, making them liable for illegal content uploaded to their platforms and pushing them to step up moderation efforts.

Firms will also be subject to annual audits, and will need to give users more information about the content they are seeing. For example, it will need to be clear who paid for adverts on these platforms.

Rule-breakers could be subject to a fine of up to 6% of their global annual turnover, and potentially a temporary EU-wide ban.

The EU's internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, told Politico the new rules mean big tech firms "will not be able to act as if they were too big to care."

The clock is ticking

Although the Digital Services Act came into force this year, the newly named companies will have four months in which to comply, giving them until late August.

Guillaume Couneson, a partner at law firm Linklaters' Global Technology Sector, said "the clock has officially started ticking" for the named firms.

"The Digital Services Act is comprehensive and will be a challenge for online intermediaries to get their head around, with the largest players facing the biggest impact.

"Smaller players will be watching carefully to see how the bigger ones respond to the demands of the Act. Their response will therefore likely influence how the wider market reacts."

Here is the full list of companies subject to the new rules:

Most are US-based, although AliExpress and TikTok are Chinese, and Zalando - an online fashion retailer - is German.

The European Union inaugurated a new regulatory division known as ECAT this month, also under the Digital Services Act, which is intended to police major tech companies.