On January 21, the European Parliament passed the Digital Services Act with 530 votes in favor, 78 votes against, and 80 abstentions on the 20th local time.
It is reported that the purpose of the law is to further strengthen the supervision of the business activities of large Internet companies. The specific contents include: restricting large Internet companies from taking advantage of data to send targeted advertisements to users without permission, restricting strangulation mergers of companies of the same type, and requiring these companies to strengthen self-examination of illegal content on the platform.
The law also empowers the European Commission to impose penalties of up to 6% of the company’s global sales in the previous fiscal year for violating the relevant regulations. The Digital Services Act will then be submitted to the parliaments of the EU member states for deliberation, and will come into force and be implemented after being ratified by each country.