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European lawmakers are urgent main e-commerce and media platforms to share extra data with one another as a device to fight rogue merchants who’re concentrating on customers with coronavirus scams.
After the pandemic unfold to the West, web platforms have been flooded with native adverts for PPE of unknown and/or doubtful high quality and different doubtful coronavirus gives — even after among the companies banned such promoting.
The concern right here shouldn’t be solely customers being ripped off however the actual danger of hurt if individuals purchase a product that doesn’t provide the safety claimed against publicity to the virus and even get offered a bogus coronavirus “cure” when none in reality exists.
In a press release as we speak, Didier Reynders, the EU commissioner for justice, stated: “We know from our earlier experience that fraudsters see this pandemic as an opportunity to trick European consumers. We also know that working with the major online platforms is vital to protect consumers from their illegal practices. Today I encouraged the platforms to join forces and engage in a peer-to-peer exchange to further strengthen their response. We need to be even more agile during the second wave currently hitting Europe.”
The Commission stated Reynders met with 11 on-line platforms as we speak — together with Amazon, Alibaba/AliExpress, eBay, Facebook, Google, Microsoft/Bing, Rakuten and (TechCrunch’s mum or dad entity) Verizon Media/Yahoo — to focus on new traits and enterprise practices linked to the pandemic and push the tech firms to do extra to head off a brand new wave of COVID-19 scams.
In March this 12 months EU Member States’ shopper safety authorities adopted a typical place on the problem. The Commission and a pan-EU community of shopper safety enforcers has been in common contact with the 11 platforms since then to push for a coordinated response to the menace posed by coronavirus scams.
The Commission claims the motion has resulted in the platforms reporting the elimination of “hundreds of millions” of unlawful gives and adverts. It additionally says they’ve confirmed what it describes as “a steady decline” in new coronavirus-related listings, with out providing extra detailed data.
In Europe, tighter rules over what e-commerce platforms promote are coming down the pipe.
Next month regional lawmakers are set to unveil a package deal of laws that can suggest updates to current e-commerce guidelines and purpose to improve their authorized duties, together with round unlawful content material and harmful merchandise.
In a speech final week, Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager, who heads up the bloc’s digital coverage, stated the Digital Services Act (DSA) would require platforms to take extra accountability for coping with unlawful content material and harmful merchandise, together with by standardizing processes for reporting unlawful content material and coping with experiences and complaints associated to content material.
A second legislative package deal that’s additionally due subsequent month — the Digital Markets Act — will introduce extra guidelines for a sub-set of platforms thought of to maintain a dominant market place. This may embrace necessities that they make data accessible to rivals, with the purpose of fostering competitors in digital markets.
MEPs have additionally pushed for a “know your business customer” precept to be included in the DSA.
Simultaneously, the Commission has been urgent for social media platforms to open up about what it described in June as a coronavirus “infodemic” — in a bid to crack down on COVID-19-related disinformation.
Today the Commission gave an replace on actions taken in the month of September by Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and TikTok to fight coronavirus disinformation — publishing its third set of monitoring experiences. Thierry Breton, commissioner for the interior market, stated extra wants to be achieved there too.
“Viral spreading of disinformation related to the pandemic puts our citizens’ health and safety at risk. We need even stronger collaboration with online platforms in the coming weeks to fight disinformation effectively,” he stated in a press release.
The platforms are signatories of the EU’s (non-legally binding) Code of Practice on disinformation.
Legally binding transparency guidelines for platforms on tackling content material similar to unlawful hate speech look set to be a part of the DSA package deal. Though it stays to be seen how the fuzzier challenge of “harmful content” (similar to disinformation connected to a public well being disaster) will likely be tackled.
A European Democracy Action Plan to deal with the disinformation challenge can be slated earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
In a pointed comment accompanying the Commission’s newest monitoring experiences as we speak, Vera Jourová, VP for values and transparency, stated: “Platforms must step up their efforts to become more transparent and accountable. We need a better framework to help them do the right thing.”
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