DSA for online marketplaces: traceability of traders
Online marketplaces under the DSA must identify and verify traders (know-your-business-customer), design their interface so traders can meet their information duties, and inform consumers about illegal products.
Short answer: If your platform connects consumers with traders (a marketplace), extra duties apply: you must identify and reasonably verify traders' details (know-your-business-customer), design your interface so traders can display their legal information, and inform consumers when you learn that a product or service offered was illegal.
Know your business customer (KYBC)
Before a trader may sell via your platform, you collect essential details: name, address, phone and email, an identity document or register/VAT details, and a self-declaration that only compliant products are offered. You make a reasonable effort to check the reliability of those details, and you do not admit the trader if the details prove incomplete or incorrect.
Design and information
Your interface must enable traders to display the legally required product information (such as identity, safety and conformity information) to consumers. This is a design obligation: the platform facilitates compliance, even though the trader remains primarily responsible.
Informing about illegal products
If you become aware that a product or service offered via your platform was illegal, you inform the affected consumers about the illegality, the identity of the trader and any means of redress โ insofar as you hold those details.
Lees ook: DSA guide and DSA obligations for online platforms.
Sources
- https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (DSA), Section 4 โ additional obligations for platforms connecting consumers with traders. - https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/digital-services-act-package
European Commission โ DSA: traceability of traders on marketplaces.
Read next
DSA: extra obligations for very large online platforms (VLOPs)
The Digital Services Act imposes the heaviest obligations on platforms with more than 45 million monthly EU users, including annual independent audits, systemic risk assessments, and direct supervision by the European Commission.
DSA: notice-and-action for illegal content
The DSA obliges hosting service providers to operate an accessible reporting mechanism for illegal content and to respond to received notices within a reasonable time.
DSA obligations for online platforms: what to arrange
Online platforms under the DSA must comply with an internal complaint mechanism, advertising transparency, protection of minors and a ban on dark patterns, among others. Small enterprises are partly exempt.