Small-platform DSA exemptions leave hosting duties in place

The EU’s Digital Services Act applies generally from February 17, extending its operational requirements beyond the first designated very large services. The milestone reaches online intermediaries offering services to recipients in the EU, including providers established elsewhere.

The important distinction is which service a provider operates and which obligation is being considered. A small platform can be exempt from one layer of rules while still having duties as a hosting service.

File photo: European flags, © Håkan Dahlström, Spain, 2010. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized; historical EU illustration, not the announcement.

Smaller doesn’t mean outside the Act

The regulation’s structure separates general intermediary duties, hosting requirements, additional platform obligations and rules for marketplaces and designated very large services.

Article 19 exempts qualifying micro and small enterprises from most of the additional online-platform section. That includes its internal complaint-handling system requirement. The exception doesn’t remove the earlier hosting obligations, and it retains the requirement to supply audience information when the coordinator or Commission requests it. A designated very large platform can’t claim that size exemption.

Annual moderation reporting has its own micro-and-small exemption in Article 15, excluding designated very large platforms. These provisions use the EU enterprise definition, rather than a platform’s own description of itself as a startup.

Two practical consequences follow. Hosting services still need an accessible electronic mechanism for notices identifying alleged illegal content. They also have to give affected users specific reasons for covered restrictions imposed because content is illegal or violates their terms.

That reason-giving rule has limits: the provider must know the relevant electronic contact details, and the article excludes deceptive high-volume commercial content and orders covered by Article 9. It’s broader than an explanation only when a post is deleted, covering measures such as demotion and account restrictions too.

A contact route and an appeal aren’t interchangeable

Article 12 requires intermediary providers to offer a direct, rapid, user-friendly electronic contact point. The means of communication can’t rely solely on automated tools.

That sits separately from the additional platform appeal system. For platforms covered by Article 20, users must have at least six months after being informed of a relevant decision to lodge an electronic complaint free of charge. Decisions on those complaints must be supervised by appropriately qualified staff, rather than made solely through automation.

The distinction helps explain why a small-provider exception to the platform appeal mechanism doesn’t erase the baseline requirement for users to contact the service. The DSA also retains its prohibition on imposing a general monitoring obligation.

Existing marketplace traders have a transition

For marketplaces covered by Article 30, trader traceability includes obtaining identifying and contact information and making best efforts to assess its reliability and completeness before allowing new traders to use the relevant services.

Existing traders have a different timetable. For traders already using those services on February 17, the provision gives platforms 12 months to make best efforts to obtain the information. Services must then be suspended for traders who still haven’t supplied it, until they provide all the required information. Article 29 contains a separate micro-and-small exclusion for this marketplace section.

Complaints can start locally even when supervision doesn’t

Member States must designate Digital Services Coordinators by February 17. Users can complain to the coordinator where they’re located or established, which can forward the case to the appropriate authority.

Article 56 generally places supervision with the provider’s Member State of main establishment. The Commission exclusively enforces the designated very large services’ systemic-obligation section and can enforce their other DSA obligations too. National authorities retain powers over those other obligations where the Commission hasn’t opened proceedings for the same infringement.

The deadline establishes those responsibilities; it doesn’t demonstrate that every authority or service has completed implementation.