BRUSSELS

The European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), which ensures a safer digital experience for users, will go into force on Friday.

The Digital Services Package, comprising the DSA and the Digital Market Act (DMA), was adopted by the EU Parliament in July 2022.

It will affect the biggest digital platforms and their users which are more than 45 million, such as Google, YouTube, and Facebook.

The EU listed Alibaba, Amazon, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, X – formerly known as Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, Zalando, Bing and Google as Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines.

Those platforms and search engines will be expected to restrict disinformation, quickly remove illegal content, better protect minors on the internet, assess risks and deploy efforts to minimize them, and be subject to external audits.

Regulating ads, protecting children

Certain types of targeted adverts will be banned, including those based on ethnicity, political views, or sexual orientation.

Those platforms will also have to take transparency measures, including on the algorithms used for recommendations.

The DSA is also planning to protect children and platforms will have to adapt their systems for that purpose.

Content will be evaluated thoroughly and disinformation will be restricted.

The Very Large Platforms and Search Engines will have to allow independent audits of their risk management systems.

The platforms that violate those rules will be sanctioned with fines of up to 6% of their yearly global turnover. Those who repeat the violations may be banned from activities in the EU.

The list of platforms and search engines can be enlarged when necessary, but the smaller digital platforms will not be subjected to such strict rules.

Wave of contest

German-based Zalando and the American company Amazon filed a lawsuit for being recognized as Very Large Online Platforms.

Zalando, the biggest online shopping platform in Europe, announced on June 27 that it "filed a legal claim at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), contesting its designation by the European Commission, under article 33 of the Digital Services Act (DSA), as a 'Very Large Online Platform' obliged to manage systemic risks."

The company stressed that its business model is mostly retail, and that "it does not present a ‘systemic risk’ of disseminating harmful or illegal content from third parties."

"On the contrary, Zalando offers its customers a safe online environment with highly curated products from leading brands and established partners that are thoroughly vetted," it added in the statement.

Amazon has also challenged the move.

* Writing by Nur Asena Erturk in Ankara