Tech Companies Face Billions in Fines Under EU Content Rules

The world's biggest technology companies could face billions of dollars in fines for breaches of new European Union legislation, details of which are expected to be agreed upon by lawmakers as soon as Friday. From a report: The landmark Digital Services Act is the EU's answer to what it sees as a failure by tech giants to combat illegal content on their platforms. Noncompliance could cost companies as much as 6% of their global annual sales when the rules go into effect as early as 2024. Failures could be extremely costly. Based on their reported 2021 annual sales, Amazon, for instance, could face a theoretical fine of as much as 26 billion euros ($28 billion) for future noncompliance with the DSA, or Google as much 14 billion euros. Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen said the DSA could represent a "global gold standard" for regulating social media companies. After more than a year of internal wrangling, key rules expected to be announced include: 1. A ban on using sensitive data such as race or religion for targeting ads2. A ban on targeting any ads to minors3. A ban on so-called "dark patterns," specifically tactics to push people into consenting to online tracking.

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