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Digital Fundamental Rights in the EU

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Regulating Digital Markets

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Institutions, Economics and Law ((PSIEL))

Abstract

The definition of digital rights has been an arduous task for policy makers, due to informational and institutional asymmetries vis à vis digital platforms, and to the fact that those platforms developed their own rules, and progressively built private legal orderings. Nevertheless, a public intervention turned out to be essential for a fair and effective functioning of the Digital Market Society, especially with regards to: consumer protection in e-commerce and online services; universal and non-discriminatory access to web and its contents; on-line privacy and data protection; and cybersecurity and safe use of the internet.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    EU Commission (2021) and EU Commission (2022).

  2. 2.

    Kelsen and Paulson (1982). The essay reflects doctrines that Kelsen developed at greater length in his last full statement of the Pure Theory of Law (1960).

  3. 3.

    Romano (2017).

  4. 4.

    It is interesting to note that also the state doctrine based on social contract theories, hinges upon the consensual agreement between individual in order to create a political order. However, first of all, this is a fictio iuris as historically such contracts and agreement between all citizens never took place. Secondly, the social contract usually comprises both a pactum unionis (joining agreement between people) and a pactum subjectionis (subjection agreement of people to the political legal order). This second element, implying authoritative powers and impossibility to exit from that order, is absent to lawful private ordering (while can exist in unlawful order based on autonomous—unlawful—use of coercion like hierarchically structured criminal organisations).

  5. 5.

    As a matter of fact, the more a legal ordering is complex and well-structured (i.e., an element of society) and lasting over time, the more it tries to push, by lobbying, policy makers to include its main rules into State’s law and therefore to have a more extensive and direct protection of those rules by the authoritative State’s powers.

  6. 6.

    Barlow (1996).

  7. 7.

    Lessig (2000)

  8. 8.

    Lessig (2006).

  9. 9.

    Wu (2009).

  10. 10.

    Hobbes (1651).

  11. 11.

    Kaye (2018).

  12. 12.

    Belli and Venturini (2016).

  13. 13.

    Locke (1689). In Locke’s vision, very differently from Hobbes’, the state of nature is a “golden age”, a state of “peace, goodwill, mutual assistance”, a state of “perfect freedom” where each one is able to order his own life as he sees fit (so long as it does not violate another’s natural rights).

  14. 14.

    The concept of regulatory capacity is based onto the formal and substantive ability of public bodies to impose effective obligations, creating an efficient outcome in markets and society. For some examples, see BEREC (2013); OECD (2009).

  15. 15.

    Goldsmith and Wu (2006).

  16. 16.

    This is even more true for digital markets as there was an intended policy approach aimed to leave them unregulated, at least in the short term, in order to avoid the risk of a regulatory intervention that might hinder innovation in such fast-evolving markets.

  17. 17.

    The State’s legal order may also consider a private order as unlawful (i.e., criminal organisation) and contrast it with the legal use of force.

  18. 18.

    MacCormick (1999).

  19. 19.

    Cafaggi (2004); Zumbansen (2013).

  20. 20.

    Elkin-Koren (1997).

  21. 21.

    In this regard, there are two conflicting decisions before Italian tribunals about Facebook’s exclusion of far-right parties (i.e., Casa Pound and Forza Nuova) from its service.

  22. 22.

    European Court of Justice, 13 February 1979, Case 85/76, Hoffmann-La Roche, para. 38.

  23. 23.

    Srnicek (2017); More generally, Srnicek (2016).

  24. 24.

    MacCormick (1999); Romano (2017).

  25. 25.

    De Streel and Ledger (2020).

  26. 26.

    Smith (1776).

  27. 27.

    Simon (1955); Thaler (1985); Akerlof and Schiller (2009); Allcott and Sunstein (2015).

  28. 28.

    Smith (1759).

  29. 29.

    EU Directive 2016/1148 on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive).

  30. 30.

    EU Regulation 2019/881 on ENISA (the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) and on information and communications technology, cybersecurity certification. Repealing regulation EU N 56/2013—Cybersecurity Act.

  31. 31.

    EU Commission (2021).

  32. 32.

    In each of the following four dimensions: information, communication, problem solving and software for content creation (as measured by the number of activities carried out during the previous 3 months).

  33. 33.

    Manganelli and Nicita (2020); OECD (1999).

  34. 34.

    Manganelli and Nicita (2020), Sects. 2.1 and 6.

  35. 35.

    Manganelli and Nicita (2020), Sect. 8.3.

  36. 36.

    EU Regulation 2015/2120 laying down measures concerning open internet access (Open Internet Regulation, OIR).

  37. 37.

    Article 3(1) Open Internet Regulation (OIR).

  38. 38.

    Article 3(3) OIR. Nevertheless, “reasonable” day-to-day traffic management practices are allowed as long as they are (a) transparent, (b) non-discriminatory, (c) proportionate and (d) not based on any commercial considerations but on objectively different technical quality of service requirements for specific traffic categories. Regulation also allows for the provision of specialised services, deemed as those services that need to be carried out at a specific level of quality that cannot be assured by the standard best effort delivery. See, BEREC Guidelines on the Implementation by National Regulators of European Net Neutrality Rules, BoR (16) 127.

  39. 39.

    Article 4 OIR.

  40. 40.

    Under Article 169 TFEU.

  41. 41.

    The protection of consumers is an essential part of safeguarding the EU internal market, which establishment and protection is set out as an objective in articles 26 and 114 of the TFEU.

  42. 42.

    OECD (2019).

  43. 43.

    Howells et al. (2017); Howells (2020)

  44. 44.

    Mateja and Micklitz (2017).

  45. 45.

    Directive 93/13/EC on Unfair Terms in Consumers’ Contracts.

  46. 46.

    Directive 2005/29/EC, concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market. Unfair Commercial Practice Directive (UCPD).

  47. 47.

    Directive 2011/83/EC on Consumers’ Rights.

  48. 48.

    Article 3 UCPD.

  49. 49.

    Annex I UCPD.

  50. 50.

    Article 6, 7, 8 UCPD.

  51. 51.

    Article 5 UCPD. ‘Professional diligence’ means the standard of special skill and care which a trader may reasonably be expected to exercise towards consumers, commensurate with honest market practice and/or the general principle of good faith in the trader’s field of activity, art 2 (h) UCPD.

  52. 52.

    Article 9(d) UCPD.

  53. 53.

    Pollicino (2021).

  54. 54.

    European Commission (2017) Staff Working Documents: SWD (2017)169 and SWD (2017)209, respectively on the Evaluation of the Consumers’ Right Directive and on the Fitness Check of the Unfair Commercial Practices and other Directives.

  55. 55.

    European Commission (2021).

  56. 56.

    European Commission (2018)

  57. 57.

    Directive (EU) 2019/2161 as regards Better Enforcement and Modernisation of Union Consumer Protection Rules (Modernisation Directive, MD).

  58. 58.

    Recitals 20 – 23 and Article 3, para. 4(b); Article 4, para. 5 MD.

  59. 59.

    Article 3, para. 7(a) MD.

  60. 60.

    Article 3, para. 1(b); Article 4, para. 1(e) MD.

  61. 61.

    Article 3, para. 4(a)(ii) and Recital 28 MD.

  62. 62.

    Recitals 31 – 33 and Article 4, para. 1(d) MD. As it is also the case for Directive (EU) 2019/770, which provides common rules on certain requirements concerning contracts for the supply of digital content or digital services, in particular on: (a) the conformity of digital content or a digital service with the contract, (b) remedies in the event of a lack of such conformity or a failure to supply, and the modalities for the exercise of those remedies, and (c) the modification of digital content or a digital service.

  63. 63.

    Article 4, para. 11(b) and Recital 30 MD.

  64. 64.

    Recital 45 M.

  65. 65.

    Article 2, para. 1 MD.

  66. 66.

    Article 3, para. 7(b) MD.

  67. 67.

    Article 3, para. 4(c) MD.

  68. 68.

    Article 3, para. 7(b).

  69. 69.

    Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (P2B Regulation).

  70. 70.

    Recital 47, 49, P2B Regulation.

  71. 71.

    The EU Observatory on the Online Platform Economy monitors and analyses the online platform economy, supporting the Commission in policymaking. The Observatory is made up of a group of Commission officials and a dedicated expert group of prominent independent experts, which was firstly established by a 2018 EC decision, and recently renewed in 2021 (the 2nd term of the expert group).

  72. 72.

    European Data Market study (2016).

  73. 73.

    Regulation (EU) 2018/1807 on a framework for the free flow of non-personal data in the European Union.

  74. 74.

    Regulation (EU) 2016/6791 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR). The regulation was adopted in May 2016 and became applicable as of May 2018.

  75. 75.

    European Commission (2015).

  76. 76.

    GDPR, Article 4.

  77. 77.

    Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (2017), 2; GDPR, Recital 68. See also Colangelo and Maggiolino (2019).

  78. 78.

    Directive (EU) 2015/2366 which replaced the Payment Services Directive (PSD), Directive 2007/64/EC.

  79. 79.

    Custers and Ursic (2016).

  80. 80.

    A data controller is “any natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data” GDPR, Article 20.

  81. 81.

    GDPR, Article 20.

  82. 82.

    Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (2017), 4. See also European Commission (2018).

  83. 83.

    Costa-Cabral and Lynskey (2017).

  84. 84.

    On this point, see Graef, Husovec, Purtova (2018). Instead, for a view supporting a full proprietary setting, see De Hert, Papakonstantinou, Malgieri, Baslay, and Sanchez (2018).

  85. 85.

    Directive 2013/37/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 amending Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information [2013] OJ L175, Recital 21.

  86. 86.

    Directive 2002/58/EC concerning the processing of personal data and protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector.

  87. 87.

    European Commission (2017) Proposal for a Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications. COM (2017) 10 final.

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  1. University of Rome LUMSA, Rome, Italy

    Antonio Manganelli & Antonio Nicita

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Manganelli, A., Nicita, A. (2022). Digital Fundamental Rights in the EU. In: Regulating Digital Markets. Palgrave Studies in Institutions, Economics and Law. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89388-0_4

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