1. Executive Summary

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.