WTF is the DSA?!

Hi there and welcome to DSAtoday.eu, the streamlined DSA consulting service, where today we provide the basic information of what the Digital Services Act is and what it does.

Being a tech founder is challenging enough without legal getting in the way. With that said, the success of your business often depends on a robust understanding of and streamlined compliance with the applicable regulatory obligations.

Doing business in the European Union has many advantages: an integrated internal market covering a whopping 27 countries, wealthy and tech-savvy consumers in the hundreds of millions and a straight-forward and easy to comprehend regulatory landsca... well, maybe not that last one, not exactly.

The good news is that DSAtoday.eu is here to help you achieve compliance with one of the EU's landmark rulebooks, the Digital Services Act, so today, here's a breakdown of what the DSA is and why you need to care if you operate certain digital businesses in the EU.

The Digital Services Act is a single rulebook for digital services (AKA intermediaries) operating in the EU. This means based wherever in the world, but offering services to users in the EU. It lays down rules covering content moderation, due diligence, transparency and governance and does so in a proportionate way. What we mean by this is that the scope of your obligations changes depending on your business type and size. Offering a pet-sitting platform in the EU? You get some degree of compliance exposure. Operating a huge service with over 45 million active monthly users? Get ready to pay a law firm (and the European Commission for supervising you).

The requirements it lays down are numerous and concern how you moderate the content available on your service, how you engage with regulatory authorities, how you allow business to be conducted on your marketplace and how you disclose certain information about your business related to advertising and content moderation. The extent of your obligations depends on your service and can vary significantly. A common set of transparency and due diligence obligations is applicable to all intermediaries across the board. Additional obligations apply cumulatively to providers of hosting services, online platforms, online marketplaces and Very Large Online Platforms and Very Large Online Search Engines.

In addition, the Digital Services Act establishes a dedicated framework for its supervision and enforcement with powers reminiscent of those we know from competition enforcement. At the EU level, this task is entrusted to the European Commission while at the national level, a set of 27 Digital Services Coordinators coordinate enforcement and cross-border cooperation in investigations.

If you'd like a free debrief on whether and to what extent the DSA applies to you, fill out our typeform at DSAtoday.eu and we'll send one right over, no strings attached.

Each of the topics this blogpost touches upon will be broken down in greater detail in subsequent posts, so don't be a stranger and bookmark this site. If there are specific topics you'd like us to tackle, let us know at info@dsatoday.eu!