The Tech Brief

The access to data is increasingly recognized as an area of focus for competition policy in the digital space. As the DMA approached the finishing line, we were joined by Bojana Bellamy, President of the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL), to discuss how the law targeting gatekeepers is expected to interlink with the EU privacy framework.

The migration crisis at the Polish border was combined with a number of cyber attacks and disinformation offensives. Janusz Cieszyński, Poland’s secretary of state and government plenipotentiary for cybersecurity, explains how Poland is facing the situation and what Europe could do to better address these attacks in the future.

Raj Samani, McAfee’s chief scientist, walks us through the upcoming challenges in the field of cybersecurity, and how regulators, law enforcement authorities and private actors should work together to face cyberthreats.

In its new coalition agreement, the likely next German government put a special emphasis on digitalization. To shed some light on what Germany has in store for digitalisation, we spoke with Oliver Süme, Chair of the Board at eco, one of Germany’s biggest digital associations. The discussion focuses on the main challenges that the next government has to face and if the measures that are outlined in the coalition agreement are enough to bring Germany back on track to master the digital transformation. 

Apple has vehemently been opposing sideloading provisions in the DMA, which would allow alternative ways for downloading apps on their operating system. Damien Geradin, legal counsel for the Coalition for App Faireness responds point by point to Apple’s argument, making the case for opening up the competition among app stores.

Tommaso Valletti had a key role in shaping EU competition policy in critical years for the digital economy. In this interview, he gives his take on killer acquisitions, the scope of the DMA, provisions on the regulatory dialogue and the potential risks that would make the new EU law less effective. Valletti concludes on a critical note, for his work and that of fellow Commission regulators.

The passage of an amendment to the proposed Digital Services Act (DSA) has stirred debate between the media sector and those working in anti-disinformation fields over just how much content moderation power online platforms should have when it comes to material produced by news outlets. In this episode, Aurore Raoux of News Media Europe explains why the media sector is placing such importance on the amendment.

The IMCO vote on the Digital Markets Act has officially been delayed, as some significant difference remain between the main political groups. To better understand where things stand, I have interviewed MEP Evelyne Gebhardt, the shadow rapporteur for the social-democratic group, and MEP Andrus Ansip, the shadow rapporteur for the liberal group. The EU lawmakers explain the main differences in terms of scope, implementation, killer acquisitions and targeted advertising.

China has been pushing an aggressive agenda on a number of digital issues. We discussed the Chinese strategy to regulate the tech sector, and its implication for European businesses, with Vera Demary, head of research unit for digitalisation at the German Economic Institute.

We have asked the European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiorowski about its recent proposal to organize a conference to review the enforcement of GDPR, the EU privacy law. He also provided his views on the current criticism around GDPR’s one-stop-shot, the Privacy Shield negotiations, the debate around encryption and the e-Privacy negotiations.