DSA guide: does the Digital Services Act apply to your service?

Short answer: The DSA — Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 — has applied since 17 February 2024 to all intermediary services offered in the EU. Obligations are tiered: the larger and more visible the service, the heavier the requirements. Determine which tier you fall into first.

The four tiers

1. Intermediary services (mere conduit, caching, hosting) — baseline duties: transparent terms, a point of contact for authorities and users, and annual transparency reporting.
2. Hosting services — additionally a notice-and-action mechanism (reporting illegal content) and a statement of reasons when removing or restricting content.
3. Online platforms (which disseminate content to the public) — additionally an internal complaint mechanism, out-of-court dispute settlement, trusted flaggers, anti-misuse measures, advertising transparency, a ban on dark patterns, protection of minors, and for marketplaces trader traceability. See DSA obligations for online platforms.
4. Very large platforms and search engines (VLOPs/VLOSEs, 45M+ EU users) — designated by the Commission; additionally annual risk assessments, independent audits, crisis response and researcher data access.

Exemption for small enterprises

Micro and small enterprises are exempt from some of the heavier platform obligations (such as the complaint and dispute mechanism), unless designated as a VLOP. The baseline and hosting duties still apply.

Supervision

Each member state has a Digital Services Coordinator (in the Netherlands the ACM) for enforcement; for VLOPs/VLOSEs the European Commission supervises directly. Determine your tier, document your processes (notice, statement of reasons, transparency), and align with your national coordinator.

Lees ook: DSA for online marketplaces.