Digital platforms regulation in Brazil: current debates and future directions

The Internet has profoundly transformed the ways in which we obtain information, interact, and consume, playing a significant role in our lives. These changes have prompt governments and society to discuss the need to create a more robust set of rules that govern this environment.

The requirement for financial contributions from digital platforms underlies the debate globally, and discussions in Brazil have been gaining more and more attention within legislative houses and regulatory agencies.

A Bill of Law recently approved by the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee seeks to impose taxes on video-on-demand services provided by streaming platforms, similar to the one already imposed to other providers of audiovisual content. The draft addresses a longstanding demand from these stakeholders, aiming to balance the asymmetries across all available services.

The Brazilian Congress is examining additional legislative proposals affecting digital platforms, including those concerning the compensation of copyright holders and journalistic activities, due to the significant impact of big tech’s business models on these operations.

While the main proposal to reform Brazil’s Copyright Law has been on hold since 2023, the Bill of Law that determines that digital platforms must remunerate news content creators was approved in the Chamber of Deputies Communications Committee in May 2024. Despite the progress, the text has not yet fulfilled all the legislative steps and remains highly controversial. 

Additionally, in January 2024, the National Telecommunications Agency (“ANATEL”) conducted a public consultation (“tomada de subsídios”) to assess the feasibility of establishing a fee for the use of telecommunications networks by digital platforms.

Telecommunications companies contend that data flows increase by the year and, therefore investments in infrastructure are essential to expand and improve the quality of existing networks and implement new technologies, such as 5G and fiber optics. They assert that a small number of large companies – which notably generate most of the traffic – carry out their business models with great success, yielding high profits without contributing to improve and update the very same networks on which their services are provided. For this reason, the telcos advocate in favor of establishing a public policy that ensures that such costs are shared with all the players in the sector.

Criticisms to the creation of an “Internet toll” have been made not only by the platforms themselves but also by the academia and the third sector. In their view, requiring certain services to pay for making their content available to users could lead to Internet fragmentation; hinder consumers and streaming services; and might bring about market concentration. Fiery discussions on the matter are still ongoing. 

Although the debate in Brazil is still open, pressure from society and affected sectors is on the rise, thus we should expect some kind of regulation to come into force soon.