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LONDON European Union and British regulators said on Friday that they were beginning separate antitrust inquiries into Facebook, broadening their efforts to rein in the worlds largest technology companies.

The investigations by the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-nation union, and Britains Competition and Markets Authority take aim at a key business strategy used by Facebook and other large tech companies: to use their size and power in one area to enter others. Amazon used its position as the largest online retailer to become a major player in video streaming. Apple leveraged the iPhone to create one of the worlds largest mobile payment systems with Apple Pay. Google has parlayed its dominance as a search engine into many different areas.

The regulators said they would start formal investigations of Facebook Marketplace, an eBay-like classifieds service introduced in 2016 for users to buy and sell products. Under scrutiny is whether Facebook unfairly used data collected from advertisers to help boost Marketplace to the more than two billion users of its main social network, giving it an unfair advantage over rivals in violation of European Union competition laws. Britain is also looking into Facebook Dating, a service the company introduced in Europe last year.

The inquiries intensify the already wide-ranging scrutiny that tech giants are facing from governments around the globe. Regulators in the United States, China, India, Australia, Russia and Latin America are investigating and pressing charges against the companies, accusing them of squashing rivals and harming consumers. On Friday, Germanys competition authority announced an investigation into Google for its treatment of publishers using the companys Google News Showcase. Google pays publishers for the content, and the regulator said it was exploring if the company treated publishers unfairly to have their stories featured on the tool.

The European investigations into Facebook open a new flank for the social media giant. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state accused the company of using mergers to squeeze out competition and create a monopoly.

These inquiries into Facebook address different areas, and todays actions underscore that concern with tech platforms is worldwide and not going away, said Michael Kades, the director of markets and competition policy for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a center that researches the causes and effects of inequality.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissions executive vice president in charge of competition policy, said Friday that Facebook collected vast troves of data on the activities of its users, enabling it to target specific customer groups.

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June 3, 2021, 8:18 p.m. ET

We will look in detail at whether this data gives Facebook an undue competitive advantage, in particular on the online classified ads sector, where people buy and sell goods every day and where Facebook also competes with companies from which it collects data, she said in a statement.

In todays digital economy, data should not be used in ways that distort competition, she said.

In Britain, antitrust regulators were already investigating the companys advertising practices. On Friday, the competition regulator said it was now looking at Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Dating. The British regulator said it would work with the European Commission, though the investigations are independent of each other.

Facebook defended its business practices in a statement on Friday. Marketplace and Dating offer people more choices, and both products operate in a highly competitive environment with many large incumbents, a representative of Facebook said. We will continue to cooperate fully with the investigations to demonstrate that they are without merit.

The announcements are the beginning of formal investigations that may take years to complete.

A preliminary investigation had already been underway, with the European Commission sending questions to Facebooks rivals. Last year, Facebook sued the European Commission over demands made by regulators to turn over documents and data, saying the materials sought were overly broad and included highly sensitive information about employees. Facebook said it had provided more than one million documents related to the Marketplace investigation.

Since leaving the European Union, Britain has increased its efforts to regulate how large tech firms use their size to enter new sectors and the problems that poses for regulations. Last year, the competition authority published a report that called for tougher oversight of Facebook and Google, particularly in online advertising. Britain is considering the creation of a regulatory agency tasked with overseeing the biggest tech companies. This year, Britain started antitrust investigations into Google and Apples App Store.

European Union regulators have been perhaps the worlds most aggressive tech industry watchdogs. In November, regulators filed preliminary charges against Amazon for unfairly using its size and access to data to harm smaller merchants. In May, charges were also filed against Apple over anticompetitive App Store policies.

In addition to the antitrust investigations, Ms. Vestager is leading an effort in the European Union to pass laws to make the tech industry regulated more like industries such as banking or transportation, a process that could take until 2022 or beyond to complete. The proposed laws would make it easier for regulators to intervene in the digital economy and could include restrictions around how companies leverage their size to enter new markets. Facebook and others could also face new legal requirements for moderating users posts on their platforms.

Eshe Nelson contributed reporting from London, and Cecilia Kang from Washington.

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Facebook Faces Two Antitrust Inquiries in Europe - The New York Times

Digital accessibility is growing as a regulatory or legal requirement by many governments across the world. It is an inclusive practice that allows everyone, including people with disabilities or some form of impairment, to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the online environment.

Accessibility is increasingly being seen as not only a matter of political, but also of moral importance. In Europe, the Web Accessibility Directive and the European Accessibility Act enact the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and require that appropriate measures are taken to ensure that people with disabilities can access, on an equal basis with others, information and communication technologies and systems.

The EU Web Accessibility Directive, which was enforced in 2016, obliged European member states to ensure that by September 2020 all public sector websites met mandatory minimum accessibility requirements. By June 23 2021, the mobile applications of all public sector bodies must also be accessible to persons with disabilities. This is relevant to public sector organisations in the EU or other organisations hired by the public sector to deliver online products or platforms to public organisations.

To ensure full and equal participation in society, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), currently being adopted by the European Commission, is applicable to private organisations who operate products and services within the EU and establishes European wide accessibility requirements. The goal of the act is to harmonise and standardise accessibility rules across member countries, so that products and services use a design for all approach. This means the design of products, environments, programs and services should be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design.

The act states that apps and websites should be made accessible with the four principles of accessibility in mind perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Those principles are what WCAG is built on, which is the universal standard for web accessibility.

The EAA was adopted by the EU in June 2019. By June 2022, EU member states need to translate and adopt the directive into their national laws. By July 2025 the law must be enforced.

It is clear that the public and private sector must plan for, and embrace, digital accessibility. At Moodle, accessibility is a constant focus and with every new release, we dedicate resources to improve accessibility in order to ensure that our software is accessible for everyone who uses it.

Moodle LMS is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant, which means that Moodle users can be reassured that Moodle meets accessibility in four key areas. Whether you are an educator, learner, developer or system administrator, Moodle LMSs authoring and evaluation tools are endorsed by WCAG as perceivable, operable, understandable and compatible.

Not only that, Moodle LMS and Moodle Workplace include a range of features, tools and integrations to ensure that educators and administrators create courses, resources and activities that enhance their accessibility. This includes a new integration to Moodle 3.11, Brickfields Accessibility Starter Toolkit which includes the automated analysis of Moodle courses against a set of common accessibility rules, checking the content inside all of Moodles core activities.

Moodle has also created a variety of ways for educators to learn how to create meaningfully designed online learning environments, ranging from courses on Learn Moodle Basics and Moodle Teaching Basics to Moodle Teaching Next Level and the Moodle Educator Certification (MEC) Program.

Sources

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/global-accessibility-awareness-day-european-commission-working-towards-inclusion-allhttps://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/wadexhttps://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202https://siteimprove.com/en/blog/the-eu-web-accessibility-directive-frequently-asked-questions/https://siteimprove.com/en/blog/the-european-accessibility-act-frequently-asked-questions/#:~:text=Whats%20the%20timeline%20for%20the,the%20law%20must%20be%20enforced.

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Digital accessibility in the European Union - Moodle

Still, Mr. Bidens visits to NATO on June 14 and then the European Union for brief summits, following his attendance at the Group of 7 in Britain, will be more than symbolic. The meetings are synchronized so that he can arrive in Geneva on June 16 with allied consultation and support for his first meeting as president with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

The hopeful, optimistic view is that Biden is kicking off a new relationship, showing faith in Brussels and NATO, saying the right words and kicking off the key strategic process of renovating the alliance for the next decade, said Jana Puglierin, Berlin director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. But Biden also wants to see bang for the buck, and we need to show tangible results. This is not unconditional love, but friends with benefits.

Franois Heisbourg, a French defense analyst, sees only positives from the Biden trip.

The U.S. is back, Bidens back, theres nothing cynical here, said Mr. Heisbourg, a special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. Biden has some strong views, and he is determined to implement them. International affairs are not his priority, but his basic positioning is, Lets be friends again, to reestablish comity and civility with allies.

But eventually, Mr. Heisbourg said, policy reviews have to become policy.

Ivo H. Daalder, who was U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama, sees the whole trip as part of Were back, and important to show that alliances and partners matter, that we want to work with other countries and be nice to our friends. Even the G-7 will be like that.

But he and others note that Mr. Biden has not yet named ambassadors to either NATO or the European Union or to most European countries, for that matter let alone had them confirmed. For now, officials insist, that absence is not vital, and many of the most likely candidates are well-known.

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Biden Is Embracing Europe, but Then What? NATO and the E.U. Have Concerns. - The New York Times

World Health Organization, in collaboration with the Health & Care Cluster funded by the European Commission will be organizing a webinar series on digital and assistive technologies for ageing. The first webinar on 21 May 2021 brought together ten largescale demonstrator projects funded by the European Commission to show how a wide range of digital and assistive technologies can be used together to enhance smart and healthy ageing in communities across diverse European contexts.

Researchers and digital experts shared their experience in long term co-design in ageing and large-scale digital health projects, underlying the importance of the human component in the designing, deployment and assessment of assistive technologies and digital solutions. The presentations shared the vision of research and innovation in the field of health and care, and highlighted some practical steps to achieve the real commitment of decision-makers in the process. Recent examples of pilots amidst COVID-led restrictions showed the relevance of interoperable technologies to provide tailored and timely solutions to users. Informed discussion focused on technical choices around key performance indicators, service sustainability, services innovation, users personas and pilots of pilots methodology to promote services matching individual needs.

WHO work on digital and assistive technologies

WHO launched the Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing (DATA) to encourage the development, synthesis, and use of solutions that promote access to affordable, quality, digital and assistive technologies for people with impairment or decline in physical or mental capacity, with a particular focus on older people. Within WHO, DATA brings together perspectives from a number of different departments; including Ageing and Life Course, Digital Health and Innovation, Health Systems and Service Provision, and Health Products, and Policy and Standards. Working with service providers and users, industry, and civil society, DATA will span boundaries to produce more integrated and cohesive services for older people. If you are interested in exchanging information, sharing knowledge on latest research and contribute to discussion around enabling environment on digital and emerging assistive technologies for ageing we invite you to join the DATA community. The initiative builds on the successful WHO Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) and healthy ageing initiatives, and similarly will be applicable low-income, middle-income, and high-income contexts.

EU work on digital and assistive technologies

The Health & Care Cluster gathers ten Large-Scale Pilot projects financed by the European Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon2020. The cluster counts5 working groups focused on Dissemination, Architecture, Use Cases, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The Health & Care Cluster projects are framed within the OPEN DEI Innovation Action supporting the evolution of the EuropeanDigital Strategy by aligning reference architectures, open platforms and large-scale pilots in Digitising European Industry.

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WHO and European Union's funded Health and Care Cluster collaborating on Digital and Assistive Technologies for Ageing webinar series - World Health...

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On 18 May 2021, the European Commission adopted a Communication on Business Taxation1for the 21st century which takes account of the G20 / OECDdiscussions on global tax reform and sets out both a short term anda long term vision to support the EU's recovery from theCOVID-19 pandemic. There are three key strands to thisCommunication:

Firstly, by 2023, the Commission will present a new frameworkfor business taxation in the EU. The BEFIT aims to:

BEFIT will replace the long pending but never agreed EU proposalfor a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) across the EU.It will be based on the key features of a common tax base and theallocation of profits between EU Member States based on a formula(formulary apportionment).

The Commission notes that "common rules for determiningthe corporate tax base will deliver substantial simplification forgroups of companies operating in the Single Market. Instead ofhaving to comply with up to 27 different sets of corporate taxrules, a group will be able to determine its tax liability in eachEU Member State according to one single set of rules. This willalso pave the way for even further administrative simplifications,such as the possibility of a single EU corporate tax return for agroup".

BEFIT will consolidate the profits of the EU members of amultinational group into a single tax base, which will then beallocated to Member States using a formula, to be taxed at nationalcorporate income tax rates.

Secondly, the Communication also defines a tax agenda for thenext two years, with measures that promote productive investmentand entrepreneurship, better safeguard national revenues, andsupport the green and digital transitions. This builds on the July2020 EU Tax Action Plan. Measures will include:

Thirdly, the Commission has adopted a non-binding Recommendationon the domestic treatment of losses. It encourages EU Member Statesto allow loss carry back for businesses to at least the previousfiscal year due to the pandemic. This will benefit businesses thatwere profitable in the years before COVID-19, allowing them tooffset their 2020 and 2021 losses against the taxes they paidbefore 2020. EU Member States are asked to inform the Commissionabout the measures it implements based on this recommendation.

Following on from the above, on 20 May 2021 the Commissionadopted an inception impact assessmentroadmap2 for an EU Council Directive to fightbusiness tax avoidance arising from the use of so called 'shellcompanies' and arrangements for tax purposes.

The Commission states that although the EU has taken severalactions to address abusive tax arrangements, the use of shellcompanies (entities with little or no economic substance, incross-border arrangements for purposes of avoiding taxes) continuesto be an issue.

The Commission noted that there are existing measures addressingthe substance of legal entities in the context of certainpreferential tax regimes, however there are no legislative measuresdefining substance requirements for tax purposes within the EU.This roadmap aims to provide an EU legislative measure whichdefines substance requirements for tax purposes to be met byentities within the EU. This will focus on situations where theultimate objective is to minimise the overall tax of a group orstructure.

Under the roadmap, several policy options will be analysed forthe purpose of designing the legislative proposal, including:

The roadmap acknowledges the potential risk that multinationalswould relocate shell companies to non-EU 'third countries',but states that this negative impact would be offset by thebenefits of a standardised common assessment of substance for taxpurposes.

This roadmap is open for feedback until 17 June 2021. It willsupport the preparation and inform the Commission's decision ofthis proposal. A public consultation will be launched in June 2021.The Commission is planning to adopt a Directive in last quarter of2021.

In addition to the corporate tax reforms set out in theCommunication, the Commission is to publish measures to ensure fairtaxation in the digital economy shortly.

This is a detailed and far reaching set of proposals from theEuropean Commission which would affect businesses based in andinvesting into the EU. It comes on top of already significant newEU tax measures such as the ATAD which have been or are currentlybeing implemented across the EU. It will be important that proposedmeasures in this initiative such as the DEBRA are carefullyconsidered by all stakeholders as it is similar to and would comein alongside the new EU 'interest limitation' rules whichare, and will continue to be, a very significant and complex taxchange for companies doing business in the EU.

The initiative as regards companies which do not have'substance' will also need to be carefully considered toensure that this is consistent with existing EU law, such as the'freedom of establishment' and 'free movement ofcapital' and European Court of Justice case such as the CadburySchweppes case (Case C-196/043), and also evolvingOECD and international tax principles such as the business'principal purpose test'. It should recognise thelegitimate use of holding companies in international groups andthat certain sectors, such as securitisation companies set upacross the EU, will outsource their business requirements toinvestment managers and service providers rather than employstaff.

We will be part of industry groups involved in the publicconsultations on the Communication and please let us know if we candiscuss any matters in that regard.

Footnotes

1 Future-proof taxation - Commission proposes new,ambitious business tax agenda

2 Tax avoidance - fighting the use of shell entitiesand arrangements for tax purposes

3 Case C-196/04 - Cadbury Schweppes plc and CadburySchweppes Overseas Ltd v Commissioners of InlandRevenue

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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