An agreement has been reached on a law on digital services: what is illegal offline will also be illegal online
The Council and the European Parliament have reached an agreement on a law on digital services to make the online environment safer. The Digital Services Act, which establishes the principle that what is illegal offline must also be illegal online, aims to protect the digital space from the spread of goods, illegal content and services; it will also ensure the protection of users' fundamental rights. This rule shall apply to all online intermediaries providing services in the European Union. The obligations imposed shall be proportionate to the nature and extent of the intermediary impact in question, in particular according to the number of users using the service. Very large platforms or very large search engines will therefore be subject to stricter obligations depending on the number of users using their services. The Digital Services Act establishes a horizontal legal framework and applies to intermediary services such as those offered by hosting providers, search engines, platforms and online markets. Within these intermediary services, a distinction is made between very large online search platforms and search engines when these services are used by more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU. In order to safeguard the development of start-ups in the internal market, the Council and the European Parliament have agreed that micro-enterprises and small enterprises with less than 45 million monthly users in the EU are exempted from certain new obligations. The interim political agreement will have to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament before moving on to the formal stages of the adoption procedure for each institution.