Brussels, 13 November 2019: EuroISPA has published its guiding principles for policy development in the context of the possible revision of the current EU intermediary liability framework.

As the discussions around the reopening of the E-Commerce Directive intensify in Brussels and the new Commission’s President, Ursula von der Leyen, sets the Digital Services Act as priority in the Commission’s political agenda, EuroISPA puts forward a set of guiding principles for a sensible policy development in the field of intermediary liability.

Maximilian Schubert, President of EuroISPA, said: “The upcoming revision of the e-commerce directive is an unprecedented opportunity for the EU to develop a forward-looking legislation that embraces innovation and allows the EU Internet industry to remain competitive in the global digital markets. EuroISPA’s members look forward to working with EU policymakers to ensure that legal certainty, trust and confidence in the Digital Single Market are preserved and that the EU legislative framework allows the very diverse European Internet ecosystem to continue unfolding its full potential for growth and jobs in Europe.”

Malcolm Hutty, Chair of the Intermediary Liability Committee of EuroISPA commented: “The existing EU intermediary liability ethos has allowed Europe’s digital economy to thrive and thus, EuroISPA’s Intermediary Liability Committee has worked to put together a consensus position that reflects on the fundamental aspects to consider when revising the rulebook for digital services. This consensus is been translated into a set of 17 principles that put liability protections as the key structural element of all digital services.”

With these principles, EuroISPA’s members propose a business oriented and innovation-friendly approach that safeguards the rights of users and service providers.

You can download the paper here.

About EuroISPA: EuroISPA is the world’s largest association of Internet Services Providers (ISPs), representing over 2,500 ISPs across the EU and EFTA countries. EuroISPA is recognised as the voice of the EU ISP industry, reflecting the views of ISPs of all sizes from across its member base.

Brussels, 8 October 2019: 61 European trade associations, including EuroISPA, urged Member States to ask the European Commission to reconsider its proposal for an ePrivacy Regulation in an open letter.

The draft ePrivacy Regulation was proposed in January 2017. However, several questions about the essential aspects of the proposal remain unanswered. The current ePrivacy proposal has generated great uncertainty across a wide range of industries, whose efforts to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) risk being jeopardised by an incoherent ePrivacy text.

Therefore, while the signatories fully support the objectives of the proposal, they ask for a fresh new attempt to reassess the proposal. The arrival of a new European Commission in November and European Parliament represents an opportunity for a fresh start in the debate, which can only happen if the proposal is fundamentally reassessed in light of the many outstanding concerns, the new legislative landscape and technology development.

You can read the full letter here.

Brussels, 21 August 2019: It is with great sadness that we have learnt today about the loss of Giovanni Buttarelli, the European Data Protection Supervisor.

Through his immense contribution to the debate about data protection and privacy, he highlighted the interdependence between this matter and the transformation of society, economy, and technology as a whole. His brilliant mind and constructive dialogue will be greatly missed in the EU data protection community.

We send our sincere condolences to his family and colleagues.

Brussels, 26 March 2019 – EuroISPA regrets that the majority of the European Parliament endorsed the Copyright Directive reform, with its Articles 11 and 13 featuring in the final agreement.

Innocenzo Genna, Chair of the Innovation and Growth Committee, commented: “A majority of policy-makers in the European Parliament ignored the concerns of more than 5 million users, civil society, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, creative SMEs and startups, innovative media and publishers,  and the Internet industry at large”.

EuroISPA members are concerned that upload filters necessary to comply with Article 13 will impact the competitiveness of European SMEs, while pushing overly cautious platforms to remove potentially legal content in order to avoid liability, with detriment for users’ rights. Furthermore, Article 11 on press publishers’ rights could limit European users’ ability to share snippets and hyperlinks online, due to unclear and partial carve-outs included in the text.

As the Copyright Directive will be transposed at the national level, EuroISPA’s national members will make concerted efforts to minimize the damage for the Internet ecosystem across Member States and address the lack of clarity in same areas of the proposal.