Europe Seals a Deal on Tighter Rules For Digital Services

European Union lawmakers have secured a provisional deal on a landmark update to rules for digital services operating in the region — grabbing political agreement after a final late night/early morning of compromise talks on the detail of what is a major retooling of the bloc’s existing ecommerce rulebook.

The political agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA) paves the way for formal adoption in the coming weeks and the legislation entering into force — likely later this year. Although the rules won’t start to apply until 15 months after that — so thereâ(TM)s a fairly long lead in time to allow companies to adapt.

The regulation is wide ranging — setting out to harmonize content moderation and other governance rules to speed up the removal of illegal content and products. It addresses a grab-bag of consumer protection and privacy concerns, as well as introducing algorithmic accountability requirements for large platforms to dial up societal accountability around their services. While ‘KYC’ requirements are intended to do the same for online marketplaces.