Our EU Policy Principles: Interoperability

As the EU is gearing up for a major reform of key Internet regulation, we are introducing the principles that will guide our policy work surrounding the Digital Services Act. In this post, we take a closer look at what we mean when we talk about interoperability obligations, and at some of the principles that should guide interoperability measures to make sure they serve users, not corporations.

New Rules for Online Platforms

The next years will be decisive for Internet regulation in the EU and beyond as Europe is considering the most significant update to its regulatory framework for Internet platforms in two decades. In its political guidelines and a recent communication, the European Commission has pledged to overhaul the e-Commerce Directive, the backbone of the EU’s Internet regulation. A new legal act—the Digital Services Act—is supposed to update the legal responsibilities of online platforms. New competition-friendly rules that tackle unfair behavior of dominant platforms are another objective of the upcoming reform. 

EFF will work with EU institutions to advocate that users are put back in control of their online experiences through transparency and anonymity measures whilst preserving the backbone of innovation-focused Internet bills: immunity for online platforms from liability for user content and banning filtering and monitoring obligations.

The reform of the e-Commerce Directive bears the risk that the EU could follow in the footsteps of Internet-hostile regulations that foster the privatization of enforcement, such as the Copyright Directive, the German NetzDG, or the French Avia Bill. On the other hand, it is also an opportunity to break open the walled gardens that many large platforms have become, and to put users’ rights to informational self-determination front and center.

Interoperability Obligations

We believe that interoperability obligations are an important tool to achieve these goals. Today, most elements of our online experiences are designed and regulated by large platform companies that hold significant market power. Many platforms take it upon themselves (or are required) to police expression and to arbitrate access to content, knowledge, and goods and services. They act as gatekeepers to most of our social, economic, and political interactions online. Platforms are powerful, and their power stems from many sources: most of today’s big tech players have a history of stifling competitors through technical measures, strategic lawsuits, and acquiring competitors. Over time, big platforms have become entrenched thanks to network effects, their sheer size, and the significant resources at their disposal. This is reinforced by regulation that has often become too difficult or expensive to implement for smaller competitors. The result: users become hostages, locked in a labyrinth of walled gardens.

The solution to this situation is not to reinvent the wheel, but to take inspiration from what the Internet’s early days looked like. Many of today’s significant players’ ascent was aided by interoperability—the ability to make a new product or service work with an existing product or service. Today’s incumbents made their fortunes by building their new ideas onto existing products or structures, thereby creating adversarial interoperability, often against the then-incumbents' will. In these early days of the Internet, not only did start-ups and new market entrants flourished, but also users had much more choice and control over the services and products that created their experiences online.

Principle 1: General Interoperability Obligations

EFF’s vision is a legal regime that fosters innovation and puts users back in control of their data,