Foreign Affairs

Tech Giant Mounts Legal Challenge To Tough Online Content Rules

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Amazon is taking legal action against a European Commission decision that would require Big Tech companies to follow stricter content standards and apply better monitoring practices.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a set of European Union requirements for companies deemed a “Very Large Online Platform” (VLOP) that aims to stop illegal content, increase traceability of online marketplaces, and places restrictions on targeted advertising, set to go into effect on Aug. 25, 2023, according to a European Parliament press release. Amazon is challenging the European Commission’s decision to include the online retail giant in the VLOP group, arguing it does not meet the description, according to statements given to the Daily Caller News Foundation from Amazon.

“We agree with the EC’s objective and are committed to protecting customers from illegal products and content, but Amazon doesn’t fit this description of a ‘Very Large Online Platform’ (VLOP) under the DSA and therefore should not be designated as such,” an Amazon spokesperson told the DCNF. “The vast majority of our revenue comes from our retail business, we are not the largest retailer in any of the EU countries where we operate, and none of these largest retailers in each European country has been designated as a VLOP.”

The DSA sets new obligations for companies designated as a VLOP, including requiring new measures to counter illegal content online, increasing traceability and random checks for online marketplaces and their users, increasing transparency on content moderation for each site for users and introducing bans on certain types of targeted advertising, such as advertising to children, according to the European Parliament press release.

Another company, Zalando, a German online retailer, was the first to sue over the issue at the European General Court, according to Reuters. So far, 19 platforms and search engines have been labeled as very large platforms due to them having more than 45 million users.

Some experts have criticized the DSA in the past to the DCNF for incentivizing tech companies to censor Americans’ speech online in an effort to comply with European regulations. Shane Tews, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, previously told the DCNF that “This will inevitably creep into the internal policy process of the large platforms as part of their risk evaluation for regulatory fines that will most likely bleed into a global policy perspective.”