BDI statement on the Digital Services Act
5.
Creating an innovation-friendly and Europe-wide harmonised legal framework to combat illegal content
The Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (the e-commerce Directive) laid the foundations for the successful development of online commerce and the platform economy in Europe and ensured freedom of expression on the Internet. The European-wide principles of the e-commerce Directive, which have been in place for 20 years, have helped businesses to grow strongly, new business opportunities to emerge on the Internet and have been given more choice to consumers. This has made a major contribution to the European economic activity. In order to continue to address the rapidly increasing socio-political and economic importance of Internet services, the planned legislative amendment must be developed in an innovation-friendly and uniform manner throughout Europe. Especially regarding liability issues and the legal framework for combating both illegal and harmful content, it is very important to achieve a genuine harmonisation without parallel developments. We therefore support the European Commission's plan to improve and update terminology in areas where the e-commerce Directive can no longer keep pace with new technological developments and to improve the noticeand-take-down procedure accordingly. At the same time, it is also important to maintain the tried and tested regulatory principles of the e-commerce Directive.
5.1.
Maintain the general regulatory principles of the e-commerce Directive
The liability of online intermediaries is a particularly important area of Internet law worldwide. Without harmonised exclusions of liability - the so-called liability privilege, the country of origin principle and the prohibition of a general duty of supervision - which apply to online intermediaries in the Internal Market, the Internet industry would in all likelihood not have been able to develop and establish itself as it is today. These basic principles will continue to contribute to the success of the Internet and its digital services. It is therefore important to maintain these regulatory principles despite and precisely because of the new policy challenges posed by the increased role and responsibilities of Information Society services.
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