Trouble is brewing In the case of the Act on Digital Services (DSA), a breakthrough European law regulating gigantic technological platforms. On August 21, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent to many technological giants, including Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. The subject of the letter: The Act on European Digital Services cannot be used if it threatens the freedom of expression and, above all, the security of US citizens.
The opening of the letter – recorded by the chairman of FTC Andrew Ferguson – presents a significant reference to the first amendment of the United States Constitution, namely freedom of speech: “Internet platforms have become central for public debate, and a versatile online company has been outraged by Americans in recent years. Not only Americans. Americans were not only imprisoned Americans and forbidden platforms and forbidden platforms from Platforms for expressing opinions and beliefs were not made available to a small initette, but not only the previous administration.
LUNGE TRUMPA Administration
The Trump administration intends to reverse the course and this is where the attack on “foreign powers”, the European Union and the Union of Britain, and especially to the Act on Digital Services and the Online Safety Act. The indirect letter also refers to the GDPR, the European Regulation on the protection of personal data, whose means “are aimed at imposing censorship and weakening comprehensive encryption” as a result of the weakening of Americans’ freedom, according to the letter.
Privacy and end-to-end encryption: problems on the table
In a letter, the American antitrust body specially asked 13 companies to report “how they intend to comply with incorrect international regulatory requirements” (date of planning the meeting on August 28) and canceled their “obligations towards American consumers in accordance with Section 5 of the Act on the Federal Trade Commission, which prohibits unfair or misleading acts or practices. security.
And it is on the security front, and especially in the adoption of comprehensive encryption, that FTC calls gigantic technology companies to order: “Prominant companies that their service is safe or encrypted, but do not use encryption, if necessary, they can cheat consumers who wisely expect this level of privacy.” In addition, “certain circumstances may require the application of comprehensive encryption, and the lack of implementation of such agents may be unfair.” The weakening of encryption or other security measures to comply with the provisions or conclusions of a foreign government may therefore violate Section 5 of the Act on the Federal Trade Commission, as reported by the document.
What happens in the case of disputes and interference
In the tweet on X, Ferguson strongly wrote that “if companies censor Americans or weaken the security of privacy and communication at the request of foreign power, I will not hesitate to enforce law.”
“In a global society, such as the one in which we live, overlapping and disruptions between various legal systems are natural. Just think about those in the opposite direction, between European privacy regulations and the famous American action of clouds,” said Wired Guido Scorza, a member of the Italian data protection authority. Scorza believes that in the case of significant discrepancies: “According to the US government and the European Commission, the identification of repair measures capable of guaranteeing sovereignty, including digital, every country.”
This article was originally released Wired Italy And it was translated from Italian.