Greater openness, privacy, fair competition, and meaningful choice online have never been more paramount. With the new European Commission mandate kicking in, we put forward a series of policy recommendations to achieve these goals.
Mozilla envisions a future where the Internet is a truly global public resource that is open and accessible to all. Our commitment to this vision stems from our foundational belief that the Internet was built by people for people and that its future should not be dictated by a few powerful organizations.
When technology is developed solely for profit, it risks causing real harm to its users. True choice and control for individuals online can only be achieved through open, fair, and competitive markets that foster innovation and diversity of services and providers. However, today’s web is far from this ideal state.
Over the coming years, we must radically shift the direction of the web—and, by extension, the internet—towards greater openness, privacy, fair competition, and choice.
The European Union has adopted milestone pieces of tech legislation that strive to achieve these goals and have set the tone for global regulatory trends. For laws like the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the GDPR, and the AI Act to realise their full potential, we strongly support reinforcing cooperation, shared resources, and strategic alignment among regulators and enforcement authorities.
In parallel, as the new European Commission mandate kicks in, our policy vision for the next five years (2024-2029) is anchored in our guiding principles for a Healthy Internet. With these principles in mind, we believe that the following priorities should be the ‘north star’ for EU regulators and policymakers to realise the radical shift today’s web needs.
Promoting Openness & Accountability in AI: Update Europe’s Open Source Strategy in order to leverage the value and benefits open approaches can bring in the AI space and to create the conditions that can fuel and foster Europe’s economic growth. Involve civil society, researchers, academia, and smaller AI developers in the AI Act implementation to prevent big AI companies from dominating the process. Address cloud market concentration, ensure robust liability frameworks, and guarantee meaningful researcher access to scrutinize AI models for greater accountability and transparency.
Safeguarding Privacy & Restoring Trust Online: Safeguard Europe’s existing high privacy standards (e.g. GDPR). Address aggressive tracking techniques and ensure the technical expression of user choices through the use of browser-based signals is respected. Incentivize privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) and mandate greater transparency in the online advertising value chain to enhance accountability and data protection.
Increasing Fairness & Choice for Consumers: Ensure robust enforcement of the DSA and DMA by empowering regulatory bodies and assessing compliance proposals for true contestability and fairness. Update EU consumer protection rules to address harmful design practices both at interface and system architecture levels. Introduce anti-circumvention clauses for effective compliance with rules while also ensuring consumers are given meaningful choices and control over personalization features.
You can read more about our detailed recommendations here.