Klaus Müller, President of the Federal Network Agency, announces painful fines against Internet platforms that do not comply with new, stricter EU rules.
“If we notice that someone is dangerous or that they are deliberately and stoically ignoring the rules, then it will be expensive. And we are not afraid of big names,” said Müller in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. The Federal Network Agency was given an additional task in mid-May and is now responsible for implementing the EU law on digital services, the Digital Services Act (DSA), in Germany. The legal act obliges online shops to investigate complaints about dangerous products and quickly remove them from their range. Platforms such as Facebook or X must quickly remove offensive content. Violations can result in fines of up to six percent of annual turnover. “That is very painful,” Müller told the newspaper. “Turnover is usually much higher than profit – and that makes this sword quite sharp.”
The head of the Bonn-based agency, which employs almost 3,000 people, complained that many consumers felt less secure online than outside the digital world: “Many have had bad experiences online. Their complaints about products or content were ignored, or they were deceived and manipulated,” he said in the interview. “We are making the Internet safer.” So far, however, the Federal Network Agency has only received 15 new positions for this comprehensive task. Müller said he hoped that the federal government would follow up on this. After all, he sensed “an expectation from many parties about what we should do – for example, with regard to the integrity of elections.”