BDI statement on the Digital Services Act
1.
Executive Summary
▪ The BDI welcomes in principle the European Commission's objective of creating balanced and effective competition on digital platforms. A general, sector-independent protection of free and fair competition already exists under EU competition law. New regulatory measures, possibly even bans on entrepreneurial activity, would be a strong encroachment on entrepreneurial freedom and competition in performance, which must be justified by the legislator. ▪ B2B and industrial platforms must be explicitly excluded from a possible ex-ante regulation. Otherwise, the recent successes of European industrial platforms are at risk. ▪ Freedom of contract and private autonomy apply to all companies. The principles of free competition must not be undermined, even in the digital economy. ▪ The liability framework for combating both illegal and harmful content must be further developed in an innovation-friendly and uniform manner throughout Europe, so that parallel developments are avoided. We therefore support the European Commission's plan to improve and update terminology in areas where the E-Commerce Directive is no longer able to keep pace with new technological developments and to improve the notice-and-take-down procedure accordingly. At the same time, it is important to maintain the well proven regulatory principles of the e-commerce Directive. ▪ The principle of privileged liability of host providers as well as the prohibition of the general duty of surveillance must be maintained.
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