Moti­on Glätt­li (18.3306): Streng­thening legal enforce­ment on the Inter­net through a man­da­to­ry domic­i­le of ser­vice for lar­ge com­mer­cial Inter­net platforms

Sub­mit­ted text

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is ins­truc­ted to pro­mo­te law enforce­ment on the Inter­net by means of a man­da­to­ry domic­i­le of ser­vice for lar­ge com­mer­cial Inter­net platforms.

1. today, a court may desi­gna­te a domic­i­le of ser­vice in accordance with artic­le 140 of the CCP. In the future, lar­ge com­mer­cial inter­net plat­forms should be requi­red to desi­gna­te a domic­i­le of ser­vice (e.g. by means of a new Art. 140 para. 2 CCP “Par­ties having their seat or domic­i­le abroad, which for pro­fit plat­forms on the Inter­net Ope­ra­te web­sites that are desi­gned to enable users to share any con­tent with other users or make it acce­s­si­ble to the public and that more than 200 000 regi­stered users in Switz­er­land have a domic­i­le for ser­vice in Switz­er­land, and publish the domic­i­le of deli­very on its plat­form in an easi­ly iden­ti­fia­ble and imme­dia­te­ly acce­s­si­ble manner.”).

2. also in the Code of Cri­mi­nal Pro­ce­du­re the desi­gna­ti­on of a domic­i­le of ser­vice should be man­da­to­ry for lar­ge com­mer­cial inter­net plat­forms (e.g. through a new Art. Art. 87 para. 1bis Cri­mi­nal Pro­ce­du­re Code (StPO) “addres­sees domic­i­led or resi­dent abroad who ope­ra­te plat­forms on the Inter­net with the inten­ti­on of making a pro­fit, which are inten­ded to enable users to share any con­tent with other users or make it acce­s­si­ble to the public and which con­tain more than 200 000 regi­stered users have in Switz­er­land, desi­gna­te a domic­i­le for ser­vice in Switzerland.”)

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

The issue of law enforce­ment on the Inter­net is com­plex. Accor­ding to the unani­mous opi­ni­on of most experts, a solu­ti­on such as the NetzDG in Ger­ma­ny is mas­si­ve­ly exce­s­si­ve. One of the risks of the NetzDG solu­ti­on approach is that the ope­ra­tors of Inter­net plat­forms over­re­act, resul­ting in a so-cal­led “chil­ling effect”, which is also pro­ble­ma­tic from the per­spec­ti­ve of fun­da­men­tal and human rights.

Howe­ver, an undis­pu­ted ele­ment of the Ger­man NetzDG is the requi­re­ment for a dome­stic domic­i­le of ser­vice. This would make it much easier and faster for tho­se direct­ly affec­ted, e.g. in the case of per­so­na­li­ty vio­la­ti­ons such as hate speech etc. and data pro­tec­tion vio­la­ti­ons on lar­ge com­mer­cial Inter­net plat­forms such as Face­book, to file their lawsuits or request measures.

Moti­on of the Fede­ral Council

The Fede­ral Coun­cil pro­po­ses that the moti­on be accepted.