The European Union’s flagship reboot of long-standing ecommerce rules — aka the Digital Services Act (DSA) — has now been published in the bloc’s Official Journal.
You can find the full (and final) text of the DSA here.
Tech firms’ in-house legal teams will scrutinize the detail in the coming months as they consider how to adapt their policies and procedures to ensure compliance and avoid penalties that could grow as high as 6% of global turnover for more serious violations.
The rules aim to drive accountability online by streamlining how platforms and marketplaces should deal with illegal content, products and services, as well as bringing in specific provisions for larger platforms that aims to increase transparency in smart algorithms.
In line with the EU process, the DSA regulation will come into effect in 20 days (so mid-November). That is not the actual start date as there is still a delay before the provisions become applicable to allow a period of adaptation and alignment for businesses.
Most of the provisions of the DSA will apply from January 1, 2024, according to the Commission.
But a subset of the obligations — for so-called VLOPs (aka, very large online platforms) — will begin to apply next year as the EU stipulates that the application for VLOPs and very large online search engines (aka VLOSE) will begin four months after they are designated as entering the category.
So many big tech companies and Big Tech giants are likely to have their compliance requirements from early next year.
For more on the rules EU digital companies will have to follow under the new DSA regime, see our previous coverage.
A sister regulation, the Digital Markets Act — which exclusively targets Big Tech for former regulation — will also start applying from early next year. So all this will change and soon!