EU Regulation of GAFAM: Protecting Personal Data and Combating Illicit Content

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[...] Ensuring transparency in advertising and protecting consumers, as well as regulating this new market, requires regulation. This involves issues related to collaboration between the entities concerned, in order to establish a suitable legal framework and effective control and sanction mechanisms. The European response no longer wants to just assess the damage after the fact, there is a change of perspective, resulting from the consideration of the importance of these actors in the lives of citizens, which requires the creation of agencies that will oversee these actors. [...]

[...] Part Measures to combat illicit content and products In order to ensure the 'online' protection of European citizens, the Digital Services Act applicable since 17/02/2024, regulates platforms and in particular the GAFAM. The DSA is derived from the European regulation on digital services, which aims to hold platforms accountable. It is now mandatory to establish a contract when there is a commercial collaboration involving the dissemination of advertising. This contract must clarify the scope of the mission, define the ownership of intellectual property rights related to the content created, and specify the responsibilities of each party in case of issues during the execution of the contract terms. [...]

[...] The market capitalization stocks of Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft and Amazon represent somewhere between 354 and 837 billion euros, those of BATX between 47.5 and 347 billion euros - although the market capitalization of the GAFAM is down since September 2018 due to several highly publicized recent cases, as well as market growth prospects and regulations that have made investors more cautious. Aware of the scope of their actions and the risks they pose to European citizens, the European Commission has taken several measures to regulate the digital market. It can intervene directly for control actions and fines and upstream, in the framework of the establishment of regulations, such as the DSA. The DSA aims at all digital companies and establishes new rules concerning the fight against illicit online content (incitement to hatred or violence, harassment, child pornography, terrorism glorification? [...]

[...] 1.2 Measures for the protection of personal data The major advantage of the Web giants in the advertising market lies in the traffic they generate. The multiplication of platform acquisitions over the past few years has now given them millions of visitors, and as many consumers to target for advertisers. Google, owner among others of YouTube and Waze, reaches 51.7 million unique visitors per month. In parallel, the technological progress of GAFAM facilitates the development of increasingly attractive, efficient, and tailored tools for advertisers. [...]

[...] More than half of the world's population uses them, and they alone weigh more than three times France's GDP. The technology giants continue to gain influence, at a time when the web, smartphones, and social networks are omnipresent in our lives. The digital giants are sitting on a mountain of data. A global empire covering the entire planet. The GAFAM represent today the essential digital daily life of billions of users around the world. Exception for the population of China, who use almost none. [...]