Tech giants face landmark fines for breaches under EU's new content rules

The world’s biggest technology companies could face billions of dollars in fines for breaches of new European Union legislation after lawmakers reached an agreement on its scope early Saturday. 

The landmark Digital Services Act is the EU’s answer to what it sees as a failure by tech giants to combat illegal content on their platforms. Noncompliance could cost companies as much as 6% of global annual sales when the rules go into effect, in 2023 or 2024 depending on their size.

Failures could be extremely costly. Based on their reported 2021 annual sales, Amazon.com Inc, for instance, could face a theoretical