The Digital Services Act replaces parts of the e-Commerce Directive and creates uniform rules for digital intermediary services. Duties are tiered: the larger and more influential a service, the more it must do.
Tiered duties
All intermediary services need a point of contact and transparent terms. Hosting services must offer a procedure for reporting illegal content and give reasons for decisions. Online platforms add internal complaint handling, advertising transparency, a ban on manipulative design and protections for minors. Marketplaces must identify traders before they can sell. Very large platforms face additional risk duties.
Exemptions for small providers
Micro and small enterprises are exempt from some platform duties, but not from the basic duties for hosting services. Anyone operating a community, a review portal or a marketplace should therefore check the classification carefully.
Supervision
In Germany, the Digital Services Act implementation law (DDG) makes the Federal Network Agency the Digital Services Coordinator. The same law contains the legal notice duty formerly in the Telemedia Act.
Relevance for products
For SaaS providers with user-generated content or marketplace features, the DSA is a product topic: reporting channels, statements of reasons and transparency must be built into the application. A compliance assessment clarifies the classification.