The compliance process is complete. As of tomorrow, the Digital Services Act will be fully in force in the EU

Brussels – The more than three-year-long process is drawing to a close, with the implementation, in the European Union, of a law that will bring order to digital services. The Digital Services Act will come fully into force tomorrow (Feb. 17), when all online companies will have to fulfill their obligations under the new Regulation proposed by the Commission in December 2020 and agreed upon by the co-legislators of the EU Parliament and Council in the spring of two years ago.

From tomorrow, platforms and search engines with less than 45 million monthly active users will have to comply with the guidance of the new EU Regulation to empower and protect online users by mitigating “systemic risks” and applying “robust content moderation tools.” These include content profiling and recommendation systems, privacy and safety of minors online, illegal content and negative effects on freedom of expression and information, and access to data for researchers through a special mechanism. From February 17, a new pan-European supervisory architecture will be in place, with the Commission as the competent authority but in close cooperation with national digital services coordinators under the Digital Services Act (including Agcom for Italy), responsible for supervising of smaller platforms and search engines. A European Center for Algorithmic Transparency (ECAT) will assist to all supervisors in assessing whether the operation of algorithms is in line with the red lines of EU legislation. The European Commission will oversee the 19 digital service providers identified as dominant online players – and who had to provide a risk assessment on their platforms – and has already begun moving since the fall of last year to assess possible breaches of the Digital Services Act. These dominant players are the two large search engines (VLOSEs, in jargon) – Bing and Google Search – and 17 large online platforms (VLOPs): social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Pinterest), e-commerce services (Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Zalando), Google services (Google Play, Google Maps, and Google Shopping), and also Booking.com, Wikipedia, and YouTube.

The EU Commission presented a proposal for a digital package on December 15, 2020, comprising the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. After just over a year of negotiations in the EU Parliament and Council and between co-legislators, the final agreement was reached on April 25, 2022, enshrining the cornerstone of “what is illegal offline, is illegal online.” On November 16, the Digital Services Act partially entered into force -applying primarily to large platforms – introducing fines of up to 6 percent of global turnover for violations of the Regulations.

Obligations under the Digital Services Act

Obligations under the Digital Services Act encourage accountability and protection for online users through the mitigation of “systemic risks” and the application of “robust content moderation tools.” Users will have to receive “clear” information about why certain information is being recommended and will have the right to opt out of recommendation systems based on profiling (still prohibited for minors). Advertisements cannot be based on sensitive user data (ethnic origin, political views, sexual orientation). Regarding the protection of minors, platforms will have to redesign their systems to ensure a “high level” of privacy and security. 

The Digital Services Act will also include labels on all ads and information about who promotes them, with an obligation for platforms to process user reports on illegal content through a special mechanism. This will require measures to address risks and negative effects on freedom of expression and information through “clear” terms and conditions and compliance “in a diligent and non-arbitrary manner.” There will also be external and independent evaluations, including access to data for researchers through a special mechanism. Archives of all ads served will have to be published on the interface of the platforms, as well as transparency reports on moderation decisions.