Even as companies around the world raced to comply with sweeping privacy rules that took effect in the European Union last month, EU lawmakers were working on another set of changes that could have a global impact on the internet.

Today a committee in the EU's legislative branch approved a proposed model copyright law that would likely lead many apps and websites to screen uploaded content using automated filters to detect copyrighted material. The proposal will now move to a vote by the full European Parliament.

The effect would be similar to how YouTube tries to detect and block copyrighted audio and video from being posted on its site, but it would be applied to all types of content, including text, images, and software, as well as audio and video. Critics say this section of the proposal, Article 13, would lead to legitimate content, such as satire or short excerpts, being blocked even outside the EU.

Another section of the proposal would require online services to pay news publications for using their content. This has been widely referred to as a "link tax," but hyperlinks and search engine listings are specifically exempted in the most recent draft of the directive shared by European Parliament member Julia Reda, a member of the Pirate Party Germany. The rules are widely seen as a way to force services like Facebook and Twitter that show short snippets or other previews of news stories to pay a fee to publishers, but the draft doesn't make clear whether snippets would still be OK and, if so, how long they can be. The impact on Google is also unclear, as some of the material it displays, like its “featured snippet” information boxes, may not be considered search-engine listings.

The proposal is the latest attempt by European governments to reign in US technology giants. In addition to its privacy rules, the EU has in recent years imposed steep antitrust fines on Google, delivered Apple a hefty tax bill, and passed the digital "right to be forgotten." Last year, Germany passed a law ordering social media companies to delete hate speech within 24 hours of it's being published. Unlike these other rules, which focus on taxes and fees, the copyright proposal attempts to put more money into the pockets of publishers in Europe and elsewhere by mandating licensing fees.

A coalition of four European publishing groups released a statement applauding the European Parliament “for making a crucial stand for the future of a free, independent press, for the future of professional journalism, for the future of fact-checked content, for the future of a rich, diverse and open internet and, ultimately, for the future of a healthy democracy.”

The copyright proposal would be an EU "directive," which would then be translated into laws in each EU country. Those laws could vary slightly. That, along with the vague wording of some parts of the proposal, make it hard to predict the exact outcomes of the rules.

Google head of global public policy Caroline Atkinson objected to the idea of preemptive filtering for all types of content in a 2016 blog post about an earlier version of the proposal. “This would effectively turn the internet into a place where everything uploaded to the web must be cleared by lawyers before it can find an audience,” she wrote. Atkinson wrote that paying to display snippets was not viable and would ultimately reduce the amount of traffic that Google sent publishers via Google News and search. Facebook and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.