Our mission
Our members operate a wide variety of services ranging from video-sharing and e-commerce to e-mail, forums, communication, media, online dating and hosting services – representing the often missing “middle-voice” in tech policy discussions.
Our mission is to promote a fair, diverse and open internet that is enriched by a multitude of voices and creative ideas.
We believe that a level playing field fosters consumer choice and empowerment, greater innovation, and broad-based economic growth.
As part of this mission, we engage in discussions across the EU to encourage policies that support a competitive, diverse and safe internet landscape.
Our principles
We advocate for a policy environment that promotes innovation, fosters open competition for companies of all sizes, enhances safety and consumer protection online and preserves free expression.
Targeted, proportionate and risk-based regulation
We encourage policymaking that is evidence-based and pro-competitive, developed through broad stakeholder consultation.
Where regulatory intervention is necessary, measures should be proportionate and appropriately focused to target concrete problems.
Regulation should employ a risk-based approach that acknowledges the varied levels of risk associated with the diverse products and services in the tech ecosystem.
No ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to regulation
We believe that the regulatory approach to the digital sector should be flexible and reflect the diversity of the industry ecosystem.
It should account for different revenue and service models and the varied ways in which companies foster safety, privacy and consumer protection.
This is crucial to ensure user choice, diversity and fair competition across the internet.
Fair and appropriate compliance burden
We believe that regulatory requirements should account for the capacity of tech companies to resource compliance relative to their size and resources, among other factors.
Such requirements should be focused on relevant harms and they should fairly and flexibly reflect differences between companies’ services and business models.
Regulation should be streamlined, adaptable, stable and predictable to support business decision-making across all business types and sizes.
Harmonized regulation
We encourage regulatory alignment across the EU and internationally. A patchwork of national rules disadvantages smaller and mid-sized players. The country-of-origin principle helps these players to scale and must be protected for the benefit of the sector and for the integrity of the internal market.
A safe, positive and trusted online environment
Our companies prioritize online safety, consumer protection, and user trust. Measures to support a responsible online environment should be effective, proportionate, and developed in collaboration with companies of all sizes, while safeguarding privacy, fundamental rights and the diversity of online services.