New EU rules could squeeze U.S. tech firms

Google may have to pay publishers for their content. Facebook might, too. WhatsApp could have to follow tougher telecommunications standards. A new set of rules, expected to be unveiled by European Union officials on Wednesday, is likely to put new pressure on U.S. tech companies.

In a decade of sluggish growth, EU lawmakers assert that these proposed changes will bring together the region’s national economies into what they are calling a single digital market.

The aim? To give the bloc’s roughly 500 million consumers unfettered access to services like movie streaming, online shopping and cloud computing, no matter where they live. At the same time, the proposals would force some of the world’s largest tech companies to comply with stringent competition, privacy and copyright rules.

For many executives from U.S. tech companies, such plans — which will still take years to

come into effect and which will be subject to intense lobbying — feel like another round of protectionism. The plans to be announced by the Brussels-based European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, include:

Potentially giving publishers the right to charge Google and other Internet companies, if they so choose, when they use online content from newspapers or magazines on news aggregation websites, like Google News.

Placing greater scrutiny on Internet phone and messaging services like Facebook’s WhatsApp, which may require them to comply with tougher telecommunications standards.

Giving European consumers the right to watch and buy some premium and online streaming content from across the bloc, allowing people to buy services from the country that offers the lowest price.

Providing financial incentives to telecom operators like Deutsche Telekom and Orange to invest in the region’s mobile and broadband networks, potentially restricting competitors’ use of these networks.

Europe’s proposals, which could still be subject to last-minute changes before being published, were confirmed by six people with knowledge of the matter.

European policymakers say they are only following the region’s stringent laws aimed at protecting people’s rights in an increasingly digital world. But the European Union has become a thorn in the side of many of the world’s largest companies.

“It’s a fact of life that most innovative companies come from the West Coast,” said Andrej Savin, an Internet governance professor at the Copenhagen Business School. “The proposals coming from Brussels definitely have the American companies in mind.”