The European Commission has adopted the first designation decisions under the Digital Services Act (DSA), which aims to enhance consumer rights and protections in the digital world and increase legal certainty, fairness, and harmonization of the rules that apply to digital service providers. The EU Commission designated 17 Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), including YouTube, Amazon store, Alibaba/AliExpress, Google Play, Google Maps, Apple AppStore, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Snapchat.

The EU Commission also designated Google and Bind as Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) that reach at least 45 million monthly active users.

These VLOPs and VLOSEs now have four months to comply with the DSA’s numerous obligations, including the following:

• Greater transparency to users on why they are recommended certain information.
• Greater choices for users who must be given the right to opt out from recommendation systems based on profiling.
• Prohibition on advertisements based on the sensitive data of the user, and prohibition on advertisements to children that are based on profiling.
• Labeling of ads to inform users on who is promoting them.
• Providing an easily understandable, plain-language summary of their terms and conditions, in the languages of the EU countries where they operate.
• Data protection by design that ensures a high level of privacy, security, and safety for minors.
• Filing an annual risk assessment report with the EU Commission.

Click here to read the press release of the European Commission regarding the designation of the first set of Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines.