Amazon will remain a very large online provider (VLOP) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
The e-tail giant petitioned an EU court earlier this year, hoping to shed its VLOP status, and a court dismissed the case Wednesday. The Digital Services Act was designed to create stronger transparency online, in turn deterring illegal digital activity and making the internet safer for EU citizens.
Amazon was first designated as a VLOP, which subjects it to the DSA’s strictest provisions, in 2023. The designation is assigned to companies that have more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU bloc.
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Since the government identified Amazon as a VLOP, it has been mandated to comply with specific requirements set forth by the regulation. Those requirements include hosting “user-friendly terms and conditions,” providing transparency around advertising, recommender systems and content moderation and more. They also demand that companies take specific actions to mitigate the spread of illegal content and that they work to protect minors’ mental and physical wellbeing.
A company spokesperson said that Amazon believes those objectives are important and worth pursuing for the bloc.
“We agree with the European Commission’s objective to keep customers safe online and have been committed to protecting them from illegal products and content well before the Digital Services Act,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Still, it disagrees with the EU’s decision to designate it—and other marketplaces, like Shein and Zalando—as VLOPs.
When it received its initial designation, Amazon promised that it would appeal the label. In June, it went before an EU court to do just that. The company has long held that it should not be categorized as a VLOP because it primarily serves as a marketplace, and the company’s counsel argued as much in court this summer.
But it seems the EU judicial system remained unmoved by that argument. According to Reuters, the court said in its ruling that Amazon poses VLOP-worthy risks because it may be “disseminating illegal content or infringing fundamental rights, including consumer protection.”
An Amazon spokesperson said the company is “disappointed with this ruling” and noted that the e-tail giant plans to appeal.
“The Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) status of the DSA was designed to address systemic risks posed by very large companies with advertising as their primary revenue and that distribute speech and information,” the spokesperson said. “The Amazon Store, as an online marketplace, does not pose any such systemic risks; it only sells goods, and it doesn’t disseminate or amplify information, views or opinions.”
