Digital Services Act: Commission provides guidance for online platforms and search engines on publication of user numbers in the EU

Today, the Commission has published non-binding guidance to help online platforms and search engines within the scope of the Digital Services Act (DSA) to comply with their requirement to report user numbers in the EU, at the latest by 17 February 2023, and at least once every six months afterwards.

The Commission is issuing this guidance to assist online platforms and online search engines with practical questions on the provisions of the DSA concerning the requirement to publish the user numbers. If the published user numbers show that they reach more than 10% of the EU’s population (45 million users), the Commission may designate them as very large online platforms (VLOPs) or very large online search engines (VLOSEs). This means that they would respectively be subject to additional obligations, such as making a risk assessment and taking corresponding risk mitigation measures, highlighted here.

The DSA, which entered into force on 16 November 2022, is the EU’s landmark set of rules which aim to foster a safer and more accountable online environment which applies to all digital services that connect consumers to goods, services, or content. It creates comprehensive new obligations for online platforms to reduce harms and counter risks online, introduces strong protections for users’ rights online, and places digital platforms under a unique new transparency and accountability framework.