[news release] Today [16 Nov] a landmark new set of EU rules for a safer and more accountable online environment enters into force with the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA applies to all digital services that connect consumers to goods, services, or content. It creates comprehensive new obligations for online platforms to reduce harms and counter risks online, introduces strong protections for users’ rights online, and places digital platforms under a unique new transparency and accountability framework. Designed as a single, uniform set of rules for the EU, these rules will give users new protections and businesses legal certainty across the whole single market. The DSA is a first-of-a-kind regulatory toolbox globally and sets an international benchmark for a regulatory approach to online intermediaries.
EURid, best known for .eu, has increased total registrations for its three top-level domains by a total of 15,000 in the year to the end of September, according to the registry’s latest Quarterly Report.
President Biden on Friday signed an executive order giving Europeans the ability to protest when they believe their personal information has been caught in America’s online surveillance dragnet, a key step toward reaching a broader agreement over the flow of digital data.
France, Italy and Spain are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to come up with legislation that ensures Big Tech firms partly finance telecoms infrastructure in the bloc, a document showed on Monday.
The European Parliament adopted voted to adopt the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) with a broad majority on Tuesday (5 July). On the same day, internal market Commissioner Thierry Breton provided a ‘sneak peek’ into how the new rules will be enforced.
DNS Abuse has become an issue the domain name industry is beginning to give the attention it deserves. In February 2021 attention to it was ramped up when the Public Interest Registry, the team behind .org, launched the DNS Abuse Institute. Prior to this the issue was bubbling along being discussed regularly at ICANN meetings and elsewhere.
Catching up on what’s been happening at EURid is the focus of today’s post. Over the last three months EURid has released their 2021 fourth quarter report, released 48,000 .eu domain names that were previously registered to British registrants, announced Greek character .eu domain name registrations will be deleted (Greek character domains should be registered under .ευ), continued COVID-related domain checks for nefarious registrations to March with their APEWS, published the first annual report of the Dynamic Coalition on Data and Trust, published results of their 2021 Registrar Satisfaction Survey (positive), continued support of the Surfrider Foundation Europe, they currently have a vacancy open for Legal Counsel while the CEO position has closed and announced an additional verification method for providing evidence of a registrant’s identity. Phew!
The European Union took a significant step Thursday toward passing legislation that could transform the way major technology companies operate, requiring them to police content on their platforms more aggressively and introducing new restrictions on advertising, among other provisions.
EURid has been selected to run the .eu registry for another five years, meaning they will manage the top-level domain until 2027 which will see them reach 20 years of managing .eu.