EU announced its plans for stricter regulation of digital services

The EU announced even stricter regulation of digital services such as social media. Due to the huge number of incidents related to social media platforms and user data, the European Commission stated that it plans to extend the consumer protection regulation to digital services. They consider that all digital services where consumers leave their personal data cannot be treated as free, since the consumers pay for them with their data. Therefore, even though the consumer protection legislation only encompasses paid services, EU legislators think that the scope should cover these so called ‘free’ services. The exceptions to be excluded should be services that only collect metadata, and those that need to collect data based on security laws. Moreover, this new legislative reform should require the online marketplace to make available the criteria based on which they rank products. Finally, the proposed fines should be up to 4% of the company’s turnover for widespread infigements.