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PROGRESS TOWARDS A EUROPEAN DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET IN 2014
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should remain free and open. We should put
this principle into law…”.
We also need to follow the debate in the USA
very closely, as the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) has taken an important step
forwards on net neutrality this year. The 26
th
February the FCC has reclassified the Internet ac-
cess service as a telecommunications service in-
stead of an information service, empowering it to
regulate the provision of these services in order to
ensure net neutrality. The most important meas-
ures include no blocking, no throttling, no paid
priorization and stricter transparency rules. This
decision has been fiercely criticized by telecom
operators and by the Republican Party, so the evo-
lution of the debate will be really important to
elaborate an European Net Neutrality Regulation.
Another area where we expect activity in
2015 is copyright. Following the delay in publi-
cation of the white paper originally planned for
this year, we expect some of the key problems
to be addressed during the course of 2015. One
of the main issues to be resolved is the question
of European copyright, given the difficulty of
applying 28 different national regulations in the
borderless environment of the internet. Other
important issues include the struggle against
piracy and mechanisms for fair payment.
Finally, we expect to see a lot of activity with
regard to online safety and privacy, and possible
regulation to address the monopolistic power of
internet giants. In particular, close attention
should be paid to the European Parliament mo-
tion calling for web search engines to be un-
bundled from other business, and the potential
for new proposals in other sectors ofthe digital
economy and their consequences.