The EU Commission has added Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and TikTok to the list of 19 major digital platforms under surveillance since 25 August. This was announced by the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Bretonwarning that the majors “will have to change their behavior if they want to continue operating in Europe”.
The list also includes AliExpress, Bing, Booking, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Wikipedia, YouTube, Zalando. Companies will have to comply with the transparency and reliability obligations established by the Digital Services Act, the EU regulation aimed at curbing the “digital far west”.
Thus the Brussels Commission adopted the first designation decisions under the Digital Services Act (DSA), designating 17 very large online platforms (Vlop) and two very large online search engines (Vlos) reaching at least 45 million users monthly assets. The first are: Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Shop, Apple App Store, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, Snapchat, Tic toc, Twitter, Wikipedia, Youtube, Zalando. The very big online search engines are Bing and Google Search.
The platforms were designated on the basis of user data that they had to publish by February 17, 2023. These companies will have to comply within four months with all the new obligations under the DSA which aim to empower and protect online users, including minors, requiring designated services to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and provide robust content moderation tools.
