A clash between Poland’s right-wing president and its centrist ruling coalition over the European Union’s flagship social media law is putting the country further at risk of multimillion euro fines from Brussels. President Karol Nawrocki is holding up a bill that would implement the EU’s Digital Services Act, a tech law that allows regulators to police how social media firms moderate content. Nawrocki, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the law would “give control of content on the internet to officials subordinate to the government, not to independent courts.” The government coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Nawrocki’s rival, warned this further exposed them to the risk of EU fines as high as €9.5 million. Deputy Digital Minister Dariusz Standerski said in a TV interview that, “since the president decided to veto this law, I’m assuming he is also willing to have these costs [of a potential fine] charged to the budget of the President’s Office.” Nawrocki’s refusal to sign the bill brings back bad memories of Warsaw’s years-long clash with Brussels over the rule of law, a conflict that began when Nawrocki’s Law and Justice party rose to power in 2015 and started reforming the country’s courts and regulators. The EU imposed €320 million in penalties on Poland from 2021-2023. Warsaw was already in a fight with the Commission over its slow implementation of the tech rulebook since 2024, when the EU executive put Poland on notice for delaying the law’s implementation and for not designating a responsible authority. In May last year Brussels took Warsaw to court over the issue. If the EU imposes new fines over the rollout of digital rules, it would “reignite debates reminiscent of the rule-of-law mechanism and frozen funds disputes,” said Jakub Szymik, founder of Warsaw-based non-profit watchdog group CEE Digital Democracy Watch. Failure to implement the tech law could in the long run even lead to fines and penalties accruing over time, as happened when Warsaw refused to reform its courts during the earlier rule of law crisis. The European Commission said in a statement that it “will not comment on national legislative procedures.” It added that “implementing the [Digital Services Act] into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights.” “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland” for its “failure to designate and empower” a responsible authority, the statement said. Under the tech platforms law, countries were supposed to designate a national authority to oversee the rules by February 2024. Poland is the only EU country that hasn’t moved to at least formally agree on which regulator that should be. The European Commission is the chief regulator for a group of very large online platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, Chinese-owned TikTok and Shein and others. But national governments have the power to enforce the law on smaller platforms and certify third parties for dispute resolution, among other things. National laws allow users to exercise their rights to appeal to online platforms and challenge decisions. When blocking the bill last Friday, Nawrocki said a new version could be ready within two months. But that was “very unlikely … given that work on the current version has been ongoing for nearly two years and no concrete alternative has been presented” by the president, said Szymik, the NGO official. The Digital Services Act has become a flashpoint in the political fight between Brussels and Washington over how to police online platforms. The EU imposed its first-ever fine under the law on X in December, prompting the U.S. administration to sanction former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other Europeans. Nawrocki last week likened the law to “the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” a criticism that echoed claims by Trump and his top MAGA officials that the law censored conservatives and right-wingers. Bartosz Brzeziński contributed reporting.

WARSAW — Poland’s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki on Friday sided with his ally U.S. President Donald Trump to veto legislation on enforcing the EU’s social media law, which is hated by the American administration. Trump and his top MAGA officials condemn the EU’s Digital Services Act — which seeks to force big platforms like Elon Musk’s X, Facebook, Instagram to moderate content — as a form of “Orwellian” censorship against conservative and right-wingers. The presidential veto stops national regulators in Warsaw from implementing the DSA and sets Nawrocki up for a a clash with centrist pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tusk’s parliamentary majority passed the legislation introducing the DSA in Poland. Nawrocki argued that while the bill’s stated aim of protecting citizens — particularly minors — was legitimate, the Polish bill would grant excessive power to government officials over online content, resulting in “administrative censorship.”  “I want this to be stated clearly: a situation in which what is allowed on the internet is decided by an official subordinate to the government resembles the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” Nawrocki said in a statement — echoing the U.S.’s stance on the law. Nawrocki also warned that allowing authorities to decide what constitutes truth or disinformation would erode freedom of expression “step by step.” He called for a revised draft that would protect children while ensuring that disputes over online speech are settled by independent courts. Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski dismissed Nawrocki’s position, accusing the president of undermining online safety and siding with digital platforms.  “The president has vetoed online safety,” Gawkowski told a press briefing Friday afternoon, arguing the law would have protected children from predators, families from disinformation and users from opaque algorithms.  The minister also rejected Nawrocki’s Orwellian comparisons, saying the bill explicitly relied on ordinary courts rather than officials to rule on online content. Gawkowski said Poland is now among the few EU countries without national legislation enabling effective enforcement of the DSA and pledged that the government would continue to pursue new rules. The clash comes as enforcement of the social media law has become a flashpoint in EU-U.S. relations.  Brussels has already fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million for breaching the law, prompting a furious response from Washington, including travel bans imposed by the Trump administration on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, an architect of the tech law, and four disinformation experts. The DSA allows fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s global revenue and, as a measure of last resort, temporary bans on platforms. Earlier this week, the European Commission expanded its investigation into X’s AI service Grok after it started posting a wave of non-consensual sexualized pictures of people in response to X users’ requests. The European Commission’s digital spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the EU executive would not comment on national legislative procedures. “Implementing the DSA into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights, such as challenging platforms if their content is deleted or their account suspended,” he said. “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland. We have referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU for failure to designate and empower the Digital Services Coordinator,” in May 2025, Regnier added. Gawkowski said that the government would make a quick decision on what to do next with the vetoed bill but declined to offer specifics on what a new bill would look like were it to be submitted to parliament again. Tusk four-party coalition does not have enough votes in parliament to override Nawrocki’s vetoes. That has created a political deadlock over key legislation efforts by the government, which stands for reelection next year. Nawrocki, meanwhile, is aiming to help the Law and Justice (PiS) political party he’s aligned with to retake power after losing to Tusk in 2023. Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into whether Google breached EU competition rules by using the content of web publishers, as well as video uploaded to YouTube, for artificial intelligence purposes. The investigation will examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thus placing rival AI models at a disadvantage, the Commission said on Tuesday. In a statement, the EU executive said it was concerned that Google may have used the content of web publishers to provide generative AI-powered services on its search results pages without appropriate compensation to publishers, and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content. Further, it said that the U.S. search giant may have used video and other content uploaded on YouTube to train Google’s generative AI models without compensating creators and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content. The formal antitrust probe follows Google’s rollout of AI-driven search results, which resulted in a drop in traffic to online news sites. Google was fined nearly €3 billion in September for abusing its dominance in online advertising. It has proposed technical remedies over that penalty, but resisted a call by EU competition chief Teresa Ribera to break itself up.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission wants Google to break itself up. The U.S. search giant says no. Google has delivered its formal response to a landmark ad tech antitrust decision by the Commission, rejecting the watchdog’s prescription of an asset sale to address its competition concerns. The firm submitted a compliance proposal late Wednesday that includes a set of product and technical changes, including some to be rolled out within the year, that aim to open up its ad tech empire to rivals. The move comes on the final day of the deadline imposed by the Commission on Sept. 5, when it fined the Alphabet unit €2.95 billion for its conduct.  In its decision, the Commission concluded that Google’s abuse was a product of the “inherent conflict of interest” it has by owning such vast swaths of the infrastructure that powers online advertising. A spokesperson for the Commission confirmed in a statement that the EU executive had received Google’s proposal, and that it will now analyse the proposed measures. The search giant has proposed a series of immediate product changes, such as giving publishers greater pricing power, as well as longer-term fixes to increase the interoperability of its ad tech tools. “Our proposal fully addresses the EC’s decision without a disruptive break-up that would harm the thousands of European publishers and advertisers,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. News publishers on both sides of the Atlantic have long lamented that they face few options other than Google to administer their ad-powered businesses, ultimately forcing up costs for the already struggling sector.  Those complaints crystallized in the early 2020s, when both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission launched antitrust investigations into Google’s control over the plumbing of online advertising. When the Commission issued its final decision in September, it made the unprecedented move of stipulating that its concerns could only be resolved if Google ceded control of its market-leading ad tech tools. The measures proposed to Brussels by Google fall far short of the envisioned structural sell-off that both the Commission and its American counterpart envisioned as a solution to Google’s distortion of competition in the online advertising sector. They also largely echo the proposals Google submitted to the U.S. federal court overseeing the Trump administration’s ad tech case, where it, too, proposed a mix of behavioural fixes. Closing arguments in the U.S. trial will begin on Monday. In its statement, the Commission said it would analyze Google’s remedies against a yardstick of whether they end and address the conflicts of interest that Google’s ownership of the sellside, buyside and exchange infrastructure upon which digital ads are priced and placed. The Commission has never imposed structural remedies and faces a high legal bar for doing so, legal experts have told POLITICO.

A message from Brussels to Google: Would you break yourself up, please? The search giant faces an early November deadline to say how it intends to comply with a European Commission decision in September, which found that it had illegally maintained its grip on the infrastructure that powers online advertising. With a €2.95 billion fine in the rearview mirror, the Commission and Google find themselves in an unprecedented standoff as Brussels contemplates the once unthinkable: a structural sell-off of part of a U.S. company, preferably voluntary, but potentially forced if necessary. The situation is “very unusual,” said Anne Witt, a professor in competition law at EDHEC Business School in Lille, France. “Structural remedies are almost unprecedented at the EU level,” Witt added. “It’s really the sledgehammer.” In its September decision, the Commission took the “unusual and unprecedented step,” per Witt, to ask Google to design its own remedy — while signaling, if cautiously, that anything short of a sale of parts of its advertising technology business would fall foul of the EU antitrust enforcer. “It appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business,” Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s competition chief, said at the time. As the clock counts down to the deadline for Google to tell the Commission what it intends to do, the possibility of a Brussels-ordered breakup of an American tech champion is unlikely to go unnoticed in Washington, even as the Donald Trump administration pursues its own case against the search giant. (Google accounts for 90 percent of the revenues of Alphabet, the $3.3 trillion technology holding company headquartered in Mountain View, California.) Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera, the Commission’s competition chief. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Google has said that it will appeal the Commission’s decision, which in its view requires changes that would hurt thousands of European businesses. “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, its vice president and global head of regulatory affairs, wrote in a blog post in September. PARALLEL PROBES The proposal for a voluntary break up of Google marks the culmination of a decade of EU antitrust enforcement in digital markets in which “behavioral” fixes achieved little, and a unique alignment in both timing and substance between the U.S. and the EU of their parallel probes into the firm’s ad tech empire. “It would have been unthinkable 10 years ago that there would be a case in the U.S.  and a sister case in Europe that had a breakup as a potential outcome,” said Cori Crider, executive director of the Future of Tech Institute, which is advocating for a break-up. The Commission formally launched the investigation into Google’s ad tech stack in 2021, following a drumbeat of complaints from news organizations that had seen Google take control of the high-frequency exchanges where publishers and advertisers agree on the price and placement of online ads.  Google’s control of the exchanges, as well as infrastructure used by both sides of the market, was like allowing Goldman Sachs or Citibank to own the New York Stock Exchange, declared the U.S. Department of Justice in its lawsuit in 2023. It also created a situation in which cash-strapped news organizations on both sides of the Atlantic saw Google eating an increasing share of revenues from online advertising — and ultimately posing a threat to journalism itself. “This is not just any competition law case — this is about the future of journalism,” said Alexandra Geese, a German Green member of the European Parliament. “Publishers don’t have the revenue because they don’t get traffic on their websites, and then Google’s algorithm decides what information we see,” she said. The plight of publishers proved hefty on the other side of the Atlantic too. In April, the federal judge overseeing the U.S. government’s case against Google ruled that the search giant had illegally maintained its monopoly over parts of the ad tech market.   A spokesperson for the company said that the firm disagrees with the Commission’s charges. | Nurphoto via Getty Images The Virginia district court held a two-week trial on remedies in September. The Trump administration has advocated a sale of the exchanges and an unwinding of Google’s 2008 merger with DoubleClick, through which it came to dominate the online ad market. Judge Leonie Brinkema will hear the government’s closing arguments on Nov. 17 and is expected to issue her verdict in the coming months. STARS ALIGN Viewed by Google’s critics, it’s the ideal set of circumstances for the Commission to push for a muscular structural remedy. “If you cannot go for structural remedies now, when the U.S. is on the same page, then you’re unlikely to ever do it,” said Crider. The route to a breakup may, however, be both legally and politically more challenging. Despite the technical alignment, and a disenchantment with the impact that past fines and behavioral remedies have had, the Commission still faces a “big hurdle” when it comes to the legal test, should it not be satisfied with Google’s remedy offer, said Witt. The U.S. legal system is more conducive to ordering breakups, both as a matter of law — judges have a wide scope to remedy a harm to the market — and in tradition, said Witt, noting that the U.S. government’s lawsuits to break up Google and Meta are rooted in precedents that don’t exist in Europe. Caught in the middle is Google, which should file its proposed remedies within 60 days of being served notice of the Commission decision that was announced on Sept. 5. A spokesperson for the company said that the firm disagrees with the Commission’s charges, and therefore with the notion that structural remedies are necessary. The firm is expected to lodge its appeal in the coming days. While Google has floated asset sales to the Commission over the course of the antitrust investigation, only to be rebuffed by Brussels, the firm does not intend to divest the entirety of its ad tech stack, according to a person familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case. Ultimately, what happens in Brussels may depend on what happens in the U.S. case. While a court-ordered divestiture of a chunk of Google’s ad tech business is conceivable, U.S. judges have shown themselves to be skeptical of structural remedies in recent months, said Lazar Radic, an assistant law professor at IE University in Madrid, who is affiliated with the big tech-friendly International Center for Law and Economics. “Behavioral alternatives are still on the table,” said Radic, of the U.S. case. The Commission will likely want to align itself with the U.S. should the Virginia court side with the Department of Justice, said Damien Geradin, legal counsel to the European Publishers Council — of which POLITICO parent Axel Springer is a member — that brought forward the case. Conversely, if the court opts for a weaker remedy than is being proposed, the Commission will be obliged to go further, he said. “This is the case where some structural remedies will be needed. I don’t think the [European Commission] can settle for less,” said Geradin.

BRUSSELS — Fresh European Union rules intended to improve transparency around online advertisements have sparked a wave of criticism, as major platforms shut down political ads instead of complying. Campaigners say the law will cause a harmful loss of information after it triggered companies including Google, Meta and Microsoft to implement a blackout on political advertising. Politicians on both sides of the aisle said it could be detrimental to democratic debate. The Commission said it is aware of the serious concerns and is continuing talks with Big Tech companies to mitigate the unintended impacts. At the heart of the EU’s attempt is a bid to curb political manipulation and foreign interference during elections. The new law on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising, which kicked in on Friday, brings new restrictions and transparency requirements for paid political ads. Since the law was agreed, Google, Meta and Microsoft have all opted to stop showing political ads in the EU altogether. “Smaller, newer parties and independent candidates will lose an affordable channel to reach voters, while large, well-followed accounts remain largely unaffected,” said liberal Slovak EU lawmaker Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová. “That shift risks narrowing who can be heard and makes campaigning harder for newcomers.” She said that by axing political advertising, platforms are “taking the easier route,” which she regards as “a worrying signal” of tech firms refusing to seek compromises with rule makers. Among the requirements, the law demands that platforms provide information on what election, referendum or legislative process the ad is linked to, how much it cost and details on any targeting techniques used.  In announcing their decisions, Google said the definition of political advertising is too broad, while Meta criticized targeted ad restrictions that ignore the “benefits [of personalized ads] to advertisers and the people they want to reach.” Polish hard-right member of the European Parliament Piotr Müller said the rules are an example of over-regulation gone wild. “The political market will be consolidated, with large, well-known parties having the resources to meet the new requirements. This undermines pluralism and freedom of public debate,” he said. Others think the blackout will benefit fringe politicians with more extreme views, to the detriment of those with moderate messaging.  “You cannot get 50 million views for boring policy videos. If your politicians do not have social media rizz, I think it disadvantages them now,” said Sam Jeffers, executive director and co-founder of WhoTargetsMe, a non-profit that tracks online campaigning. Jeffers added that researchers risk losing access to political history as they lose visibility over data on the ads. “Seven years of historical data is gone” from Google’s political advertising library, he said, as it no longer includes the EU as a supported region. In announcing their decisions, Google said the definition of political advertising is too broad. | Wallace Woon/EPA “That for me was quite a chilling interpretation of this law,” he said, expressing concern that the same might happen to Meta’s database. Google said in response that ads that would previously have been shown on its dedicated EU political ads transparency database will remain publicly available in its main advertising pages, subject to retention policies. Google’s Ads library still contains information on at least some political ads, POLITICO found, but it seems to be mostly restricted to the previous year — which would be in line with the EU’s Digital Services Act requirements. The available information is also not as extensive as for other jurisdictions, and excludes for example the amount of money spent on ads.  BEYOND POLITICS Companies have criticized a lack of guidance and clarity from the EU executive. The Commission published guidelines on the law this week, just two days before it took effect.   Based on the definition of political advertising, Meta also blocked “social issue” ads, while Microsoft won’t run “issue-based advertising.” That could include ads about climate change, migration, social justice and human rights initiatives or any “politically sensitive or socially divisive issue,” Microsoft said. The law’s definition covers anything meant to influence the outcome of an election, referendum, vote or legislative process — which could include campaigns by charities and civil society. Small organizations that are “essential” to EU democracy will see their campaign and fundraising options limited, said Eoin Dubsky, senior campaign manager for advocacy group Eko.   The Commission only clarified this week that awareness or fundraising campaigns by NGOs shouldn’t always be considered political ads. Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert defended the law, underlining in a comment for this article that it “does not ban political advertising.” Lammert said Google and Meta are “private companies and their commercial decisions on the services and products they choose to offer are theirs to make,” but that the Commission is also aware of serious concerns from civil society about the impact. A group of civil society organizations have written open letters to Meta and Google, calling for the companies to reconsider their decisions to block political ads in the EU. Based on the definition of political advertising, Meta also blocked “social issue” ads, while Microsoft won’t run “issue-based advertising.” | Olivier Hoslet/EPA The Commission’s Lammert said it is in contact with stakeholders and national governments to “assess the possible impact of Meta’s commercial decision,” and will continue discussions with both companies on the topic. It will also hold talks in 2026 to “learn from the experiences at that point and draw insights as necessary.” For some, the furore is an unwelcome distraction as the EU grapples with enforcing other regulations — most notably its Digital Services Act to regulate content on social media platforms, which already includes requirements on advertising transparency. The Commission should focus on tackling “toxic algorithms that push propaganda ahead of facts” and bombard users with “outrageous content” rather than “information they actually want,” said German Greens lawmaker Alexandra Geese.

LONDON — Meta will let users in the United Kingdom choose whether to pay for a monthly fee instead of seeing personalized ads on its platforms in an overhaul to its advertising model. Over the coming weeks, Facebook and Instagram users in the U.K. will receive a notification giving them the option to pay £2.99 a month (or £3.99 if done though Apple or Google’s operating systems) for “no ads,” Meta said. Users who don’t pay will continue to see ads, but will “still be able to control their ads experience” using existing settings, Meta said, adding that while it continues to “believe in an ad-supported internet,” the new offer gives U.K. users more control over their data. The move follows a legal challenge settled with the tech giant by campaigner Tanya O’Carroll, who argued that Meta’s targeted advertising constitutes “direct marketing” and it must therefore give users the right to object under U.K. law. The U.K.’s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, backed O’Carroll in the case. Following the ruling, Meta said it would consider extending a subscription model, which it already offers in the European Union, to the U.K. Dubbed ‘pay or consent,’ the model has proven controversial among privacy advocates. But the ICO concluded this year that it does not contravene U.K. data protection laws if consent is “freely given,” such as by setting an “appropriate fee.” An ICO spokesperson said it welcomed Meta’s announcement but would continue to monitor its roll out and the broader impact of ‘pay or consent’ models. “This moves Meta away from targeting users with ads as part of the standard terms and conditions for using its Facebook and Instagram services, which we’ve been clear is not in line with U.K. law,” they said. Meta said the decision followed “extensive engagement” with the ICO, including over the cost of U.K. subscriptions, which will be a little over half what the company currently charges in Europe (EU users can pay €5.99 a month for ad-free services). The ICO’s “constructive approach” differed from the approach of EU regulators, Meta said, adding that they “continue to overreach by requiring us to provide a less personalized ads experience that goes beyond what the law requires, creating a worse experience for users and businesses.” “In contrast, the U.K.’s more pro-growth and pro-innovation regulatory environment allows for a clearer choice for users, while ensuring our personalized advertising tools can continue to be engines of growth and productivity for companies up and down the country.”

BRUSSELS — In a bid to slash red tape, the European Commission wants to eliminate one of its peskiest laws: a 2009 tech rule that plastered the online world with pop-ups requesting consent to cookies.  It’s the kind of simplification ordinary Europeans can get behind. Cookies are a foundation of the internet that allow website holders to collect information about visitors — everything from whether they’ve logged in with a password to what items they’re looking to buy and therefore, might want to see advertising about. European rulemakers in 2009 revised a law called the e-Privacy Directive to require websites to get consent from users before loading cookies on their devices, unless the cookies are “strictly necessary” to provide a service. Fast forward to 2025 and the internet is full of consent banners that users have long learned to click away without thinking twice. “Too much consent basically kills consent. People are used to giving consent for everything, so they might stop reading things in as much detail, and if consent is the default for everything, it’s no longer perceived in the same way by users,” said Peter Craddock, data lawyer with Keller and Heckman.     Cookie technology is now a focal point of the EU executive’s plans to simplify technology regulation. Officials want to present an “omnibus” text in December, scrapping burdensome requirements on digital companies. On Monday, it held a meeting with the tech industry to discuss the handling of cookies and consent banners. A note sent to industry and civil society attending a focus group on Sept. 15, seen by POLITICO, showed the Commission is pondering how to tweak the rules to include more exceptions or make sure users can set their preferences on cookies once (for example, in their browser settings) instead of every time they visit a website.  EU countries have floated similar ideas. Denmark (currently presiding over meetings in the Council of the European Union) suggested in May to drop consent banners for cookies collecting data “for technically necessary functions” or “simple statistics.”  Fighting is expected to flare up again next year, when the Commission wants to present an advertising-focused piece of legislation called the Digital Fairness Act. | Nicolas Economou/Getty Images They said these kinds of cookies are “harmless,” unlike ones used for marketing, advertising or sharing data with third parties. Meanwhile, the industry suggested that cookie rules could be incorporated into the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. The e-Privacy Directive has strict consent requirements, whereas the GDPR adopts a “risk-based approach,” allowing companies to adjust their privacy safeguards according to the level of risk associated with data processing. PRIVACY, THE THIRD RAIL OF EU POLITICS The Commission’s opening gambit to reform cookie rules sets up Brussels for a fierce lobbying showdown: industry versus the privacy community. From the General Data Protection Regulation to more recent tech laws, Brussels lobbyists have fiercely debated privacy issues, leaving previous attempts to reform the cookie law half-baked. Some of these ideas to streamline consent banners were included in a proposal for an e-Privacy Regulation presented in 2017. But it was withdrawn in February of this year — a prized scalp of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s deregulation agenda — as EU institutions struggled to find compromise on the unwieldy proposal covering everything from online advertising to national security. Franck Thomas, policy director at advertisers’ lobby IAB Europe, said the e-Privacy Directive takes a “very rigid” view on consent and that rules could be simplified by moving cookie regulation to the GDPR, which takes a more flexible, risk-based approach. This would allow businesses to rely on more appropriate legal bases, such as legitimate interest, he said. However, “our call for simplification should not be confused with a light touch approach on data protection, but everyone agrees we need to maintain this balance between safeguarding privacy rights and preserving the competitiveness of the European tech industry,” Thomas added. Any new moves to tamper with cookie consent will face stiff opposition from Brussels’ fierce privacy lobby, which is wary of cookies being used for targeted advertising.   “Focusing on cookies is like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, the ship being surveillance advertising,” said Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal⁩, policy adviser at European Digital Rights. She said the law already makes an exception for cookies that are necessary to deliver a service people explicitly expect, such as remembering items in a shopping cart. “Expanding that category to include [other kinds of] ‘essential’ tracking is misleading, because it risks smuggling in analytics or personalization for adtech,” she added. Fighting is expected to flare up again next year, when the Commission wants to present an advertising-focused piece of legislation called the Digital Fairness Act. The executive has stated that the rulebook will help protect consumers online, including from manipulative design or unfair personalization.

Mario Monti is a former prime minister of Italy and EU commissioner. The European Commission sanctioned Google on Sept. 5, for abusing its dominant position in the bloc’s advertising technology market. The sanction had two components: a €2.95-billion fine, as well as the obligation of introducing changes to the company’s business model that will ensure the discontinuation of the abuse. In reaction, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement on how “Europe today ‘hit’ another great American company.” Taking to social media, he warned: “We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these taxpaying American companies” — a proceeding that would presumably lead to the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. But, with all due respect, Trump is missing a key point: There is no discrimination here. The Commission sanctions cases of abuse of dominance that take place in the EU market, whether they’re carried out by EU or non-EU companies. More to the point, this is exactly what the U.S. antitrust authorities do with respect to the U.S. market. Incidentally, just yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission in Washington opened an investigation into the advertising practices of Google and Amazon, much along the lines set out by the Commission. We’ve been here before — and with the same players too. Let’s rewind 20 years to when I was Competition commissioner: In 2004, the Commission sanctioned Microsoft after a long investigation involving constructive discussions with Co-founder Bill Gates, then-CEO Steve Ballmer and then-General Counsel Brad Smith, among many others. Eventually, it imposed a fine of almost €500 million and, more importantly, ordered changes to the company’s business model. Interestingly, the complaints that prompted the investigation mainly came from U.S. companies, including the start-ups of the early days of the internet economy. They were complaining that Microsoft, which had — through its merits — legally earned a highly dominant position in operating systems for personal computers, was leveraging its position onto neighboring markets by obstructing other companies in a variety of ways, thus stifling innovation. In fact, I remember one such U.S. start-up — only about three years old when we began our investigation — had a rather intriguing name: Google. And I remember then-CEO Eric Schmidt visiting the Commission to praise our “courage.” The European Commission sanctioned Google on Sept. 5, for abusing its dominant position in the bloc’s advertising technology market. | Beata Zawrzel/Getty Images Incidentally, European corporate leaders, who sometimes urge the Commission to be less rigorous in its enforcement of competition rules, should also keep these past cases in mind — especially if they want a more innovative and competitive European economy, as we all do. Perhaps they should put the issue into a broader perspective and think twice. With its Microsoft decision, the Commission — followed by several other competition authorities across the world — allowed for the emergence of Google and other start-ups to become hugely successful. In fact, it put pressure on Microsoft to change its behavior and embrace a corporate culture building on collaboration rather than monopolization, supporting open-source projects and fostering partnerships with other companies. And many analysts believe it is these changes, stimulated by the past determination of competition authorities, that help explain Microsoft’s success over the last decade, under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella. Against this backdrop, Trump’s view that EU competition policy is driven by discriminatory motivations against U.S. companies is simply unfounded. What’s true is that in any national or supranational context like the EU, institutions such as competition authorities and central banks have been set up in the eminent American tradition — dating back to the late 19th century (with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890) and the early 20th century (with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913) — precisely with the goal preventing these abuses, whether by companies in the marketplace or by governments abusing future generations via high inflation. Of course, it’s no surprise that leaders with an autocratic vision wouldn’t feel at ease with institutions entrusted by governments and parliaments of the past with preventing power from becoming absolute. But it was the U.S. that set postwar Germany, and later the EU, on this track. When occupying the country after World War II, America imposed the creation of two institutions on the newly born Federal Republic of Germany: First, the Deutsche Bundesbank — an independent central bank modeled on the Federal Reserve System, meant to avoid a repetition of the hyperinflation that contributed to the advent of Nazism. Second, the Bundeskartellamt competition authority, modeled on the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, with the power to prevent the reemergence of cartels and trusts in heavy industry — another factor that had contributed to Hitler’s aggression and World War II. Then, at Germany’s request — and on the basis of the country’s democratic and economic resurgence — these two institutions were transposed to the EU level. So, today we must thank the U.S. not only for its decisive help in saving the continent from Nazism and Fascism and protecting it from Soviet Communism, but also for injecting postwar Europe with such powerful antidotes to the aberrations of the past. Perhaps Trump might forgive us if we aren’t ready to give up this great American legacy.

Meta and TikTok have dealt a blow to the European Commission’s social media rule book, pressing the EU executive to codify how it calculates the number of users on online platforms. The General Court at the Court of Justice of the European Union sided with the social media companies on Wednesday in their challenge of an annual supervisory fee the European Union charges to pay for the enforcement of its tech rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA). It’s the first major court loss for the Commission over the DSA, which entered into force in 2022 and can be wielded to fine social media and e-commerce platforms up to 6 percent of their global annual revenue. The EU has yet to finalize investigations under the law. At the heart of the case are platforms’ disagreements with how the EU calculated the fee. The Commission directly supervises “very large online platforms” with over 45 million average monthly users in the bloc. Meta and TikTok challenged the European Commission’s decisions imposing so-called supervisory fees in 2024. These fees are meant to support the Commission’s work overseeing the very platforms that pay it — an extension of the “polluter pays” principle often used in environmental policy — and are proportionate to the number of users platforms have in the EU. The EU’s General Court said in its ruling the Commission should have passed a separate set of rules about how users are calculated before determining the fees. Judges gave the Commission a year to draft a text on how it calculates platform users, or else potentially refund the platforms’ 2023 fees. The EU executive has already been working on such rules, called a delegated act. The Commission said the court merely ruled against it on procedure and not substance. “The Court confirms our methodology is sound: no error in calculation, no suspension of any payments, no problem with the principle of the fee nor the amount,” said spokesperson Thomas Regnier. Meta said in a statement that the judgement “will force the European Commission to reassess the unfair methodology being used to calculate these DSA fees,” adding it “looks forward to the flaws in the methodology being addressed.” TikTok “welcomed” the decision and will “closely follow the development” of the case, company spokesperson Paolo Ganino said.