THE EURO BLOCKADE: Italy has a playbook on how to make even the least the powerful states go Big Tech betting ads free

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By holding its own against Alphabet, Italy’s communication regulator, AGCOM, has turned a chamber affair into a lecture for the world. What started as a fight about YouTube videos has become the model by which sovereign states should cool down aggressive marketing practices. The triumph shows that European regulators don’t need to wait for pan-European legislation to get Sox down on the venture capital playground.

Huge win for European regulators: The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled in favor of Italy’s communications authority (AGCOM) and upheld a 750 000€ ($854 250) fin e against Alphabet unit (Google) for advertising gambling services on its platform YouTube. Although the financial repercussions are pretty much nothing for the Silicon Valley giant, the striking legal precedent marks the beginning of a real regulatory “Euro-Blockade”.

By expressly stating that tech companies can be held accountable for illegal posts uploaded by third-party content creators as long as they have a monetisation agreement with those creators, the European high court has for the first time taken legal action against the Big Tech companies’ immunity over third-party content that they host.

For years, digital platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Kindle have deflected legal sanctions by claiming their services are passive “carriers” of third-party content and are therefore protected by European e-commerce law. However, the CJEU dismissed Google’s defense because the company reviews the channel’s metadata and top videos in order to determine a commercial relationship of revenue sharing.

Italy has fought back hard against the universal data controller digital immunity brandwagon that it had been at the centre of, with what could be a landmark ruling that could have far-reaching implications for Europe’s digital future if it is followed by other national courts. The result of that ruling is a radical one, as far from limiting damage control to one company or the other, it means that in digital economic markets the entire industry could find itself in a legal pickle: it is no longer that single company sharing content during a period in which the user has no independent discretion.

✍️Himanshi

Scholar from St. Xavier's College Mumbai, INDIA