What’s that: The 2018 regulation targeted unjustified online restrictions for European consumers based on their nationality or place of residence — meaning you should, in theory, be able to buy any good or service across Europe seamlessly.
But, but, but: It came with a carve-out for audiovisual, allowing Netflix and others to restrict the availability of series for instance by country. The EU executive recently said it would be exploring whether to scrap that exemption — an option sure to enrage the European film industry, which sees geoblocking as vital to its sustainability and Europe’s cultural diversity.
DSA MEETING BARRAGE: It’s meeting week for the Digital Services Act community – as if listening to Vance’s threats wasn’t enough, with a Commission roundtable with the online advertising industry to discuss a potential code of conduct.
The Commission hasn’t decided if an instrument to outline requirements for advertising under the DSA is necessary, and whether that is to be done through a code of conduct, two people present at the roundtable told Morning Tech and granted anonymity to discuss the private discussion. Whether guidelines will be issued and what form they will take will be decided after a series of workshops, the people said.
Morning Tech saw part of the presentation the Commission gave on the workshops and here is what we found:
Another four workshops are planned for the next month; on March 4 around transparency in how data is used for ads, on March 6 on the transparency of ad placement, on March 13 around how malicious actors use ads to spread illegal content, including scams, and finally on March 19 on what transparency business users need.
