Majority of EU States Favour Copyright Deal Targeting Facebook, Google

On 14 February, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, the main EU bodies, announced a deal banning unfair business practices targeting tech giants including Amazon Marketplace, eBay, Apple's App Store, Google Play, Facebook Marketplace, Booking.com and others.

An overhaul of the EU's copyright legislation forcing Google and Facebook to pay publishers fees for news snippets, and filtering out copyright-protected content on YouTube or Instagram, has been approved by the majority of the bloc's members.

Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland were among the states that rejected the agreement, and two EU countries abstained from casting a vote for or against the measure.

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According to the countries that were against the proposal, the deal could hamper innovation and hurt the bloc's competitiveness in the digital market.

These states issued a joint statement in which they expressed their regret with the Directive, noting that it failed to "strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies".

This comes after the EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission sealed a deal last week banning unfair business practices by app stores, search engines, e-commerce sites and hotel booking websites targeting tech giants Amazon Marketplace, eBay, Apple's App Store, Google Play, Facebook Marketplace, Booking.com and Leboncoin.fr and others.