Platforms to pay thousandth of net income on content cops
Mobile operators and other online publishers will have to pay the EU face a yearly fee up to 0.1 per cent of their annual net income to cover the costs of complying with new European Union rules on policing content, according to Reuters.
In a speech about the new Digital Services Act (DSA) EU antitrust chief Margaret Vestager said the rules are likely to be agreed between EU countries and lawmakers this month. The tax is a first for the European Commission, the executive body of the EU.
The Commission needs new sources of revenue to fund regional, green and digital economies, said Reuters, and the scheme would create jobs because it would need scores of experts to enforce the new tech rules, admitted Vestager. “The overall amount of the annual supervisory fees shall be based on the estimated costs the Commission incurs in relation to its supervisory tasks under this Regulation,” Verstager said, in the published account of the speech.
“The fee shall not exceed 0.1% of the global annual net income of the provider of very large online platforms (or very large search engine) in the preceding financial year,” said Vertsager. The fee will be proportionate to the size of the service as reflected by the number of its recipients in the EU. The Commission defines very large online platforms subject to the DSA as those with 45 million or more monthly active users.
The fee could raise €20 to €30 million a year from the likes of Meta and Twitter, an insider told Reuters. Not-for-profit providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines will be exempt from the fees, so Wikipedia and research bodies wil not be liable. Vestager’s proposal is likely to be approved on April the 22nd when member states and EU lawmakers are scheduled to meet for the fourth round of negotiations, which is ‘widely expected to result in a deal’, according to Reuters.
“We believe it is possible, we see progress,” said EU lawmaker Christel Schaldemose, who is steering the DSA in the European Parliament. Commission sources said it’s no different from the fees imposed by telecoms regulators and the European Securities and Markets Authority on the operators under their supervision.
“We want the implementation of the DSA to be a success, and support supervisory fees that are proportionate, backed by a detailed methodology, and commensurate with industry standards,” said a Google representative.