On 15 December 2020, the European Commission presented the oft-announced package of rules designed to standardize and complete the regulation of the European digital market.
It consists of two proposals for Regulations, called respectively the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Market Act (DMA), whose texts can be found on the UE institutional websites.
The first one (DSA) contains the definitive recognition of the responsibility of the so-called online intermediaries for the dissemination of illegal contents, with a graduation that depends on their role and size, but that includes in any case the obligation of removal accompanied by considerable economic sanctions. Cases of infringement of industrial and intellectual property rights are expressly provided for.
The second one (DMA) is basically aimed at updating the discipline of the Directive 2003/31/EC on e-commerce, through a regulation of the activity of the so-called gatekeepers (intermediation platforms for online sales) that provides for a series of articulated obligations with respect to the collection, management and sharing of data collected on the market in the interest of competition and protection of the respective legitimate owners. The publication of the two draft regulations has triggered a wide-ranging debate in the concerned sectors; it is therefore not easy to predict the timing of the final approval of the rules, but it is possible that they will be applied ante-litteram.