
US tech giants Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon should be regulated where they are based, EU lawmaker says
- The country of origin principle is set out in EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s draft rules, known as the Digital Services Act
- It means Apple, Google and Facebook are to be regulated in Ireland, the base of their European operations, while Amazon is subject to Luxembourg’s supervision
France and a few other countries are seeking to broaden the scope, worried that enforcement concentrated in just two countries may weaken the rules and also slow down decision-making.

Lawmaker Christel Schaldemose, who is steering the DSA through the European Parliament and has power to amend or add other provisions to it, supports the act’s core proposal.
“It makes sense to keep the country of origin principle,” she told Reuters in an interview.
Schaldemose, however, wants to go one step further than Vestager by including a ban on some targeted advertising in the DSA.
“Targeted advertisements that are based on your behaviour on Facebook, for instance, that should not be allowed,” she said. “Advertisements based on the fact that you have visited websites for buying shoes and things like that, classic commercial advertisements should probably be allowed.”
Schaldemose said she hopes to finalise her draft with other lawmakers in the next two months, so she can thrash out a deal with EU countries next year before the proposed rules can be implemented.
