Internet

The European Commission’s proposed tweaks to the ePrivacy Directive offer only minor relief from intrusive cookie prompts, but to truly support innovation, free digital services, and Europe’s competitiveness, policymakers must fundamentally overhaul the outdated consent model.

Governments across the political spectrum are increasingly pressuring online platforms to remove lawful content, threatening free speech by politicizing content moderation decisions that should remain in the hands of private companies and governed only by the law.

The DMA’s forced interoperability undermines platform differentiation, weakens security and reliability, and ultimately leaves European consumers with degraded versions of global technologies.

The European Commission’s €120 million DSA fine against X is arbitrary and overreaching. The U.S. government should continue pushing back against foreign regulations that harm American platforms and citizens.

The EU’s digital rulebook, often praised as global leadership, instead forces many non-EU countries into costly regulatory alignment that stifles local innovation and entrenches global digital inequality, underscoring the need for more flexible, locally tailored frameworks.

France’s criminal investigation into TikTok for imperfect content moderation sets a dangerous precedent that would chill lawful speech and push platforms toward overly restrictive policies.

Banning AI companions may appear protective, but broad restrictions would cut youth off from beneficial support tools, create privacy risks through age verification, and overregulate general chatbots instead of improving safety with better parental controls and transparency.

Real sovereignty in digital systems isn’t about where servers sit. Canada should build sovereignty into contracts and cryptography, embedding control and security through procurement rules, Canadian-cleared personnel, and encryption safeguards.

Democratic allies should co-invest, co-develop, and co-regulate emerging technologies instead of fragmenting digital markets. True leadership will come from joint strategies on export controls, standards, R&D, and talent—not sovereignty slogans.

ITIF’s fall seminar course will explore core emerging technologies that are reshaping our world and the public policy challenges and opportunities influencing their development and application. The course is open to congressional and federal staff only.