Proposal for the Digital Services Act -

The long-awaited update to the e-Commerce Directive proposes new obligations for online platforms and changes to the ‘safe harbours’ from liability for infringing content.

On 15 December 2020, the European Commission released its proposal for a regulation on a Single Market for Digital Services (the Digital Services Act, or DSA) with the aim of amending parts of Directive 2000/31/EC (the e-Commerce Directive) while maintaining its core principles. The DSA applies to intermediary services provided to users (referred to as “recipients of the service” in the DSA) that are established or resident in the EU, irrespective of the place of establishment or residency of the service provider. In the 20 years since the introduction of the e-Commerce Directive, digital services have transformed the lives of EU citizens but there is wide-spread acknowledgement that these new technologies, upon which our society is now dependent, have presented risks and challenges, some of them legal, that could not have been envisioned when the e-Commerce Directive was first introduced. The DSA aims to address certain of these risks and modernise the legislative framework behind digital services in the EU.