Amazon's retail outfit tops list of orders from EU member states under new DSA law
(2023/11/13)
- Reference: 1699879209
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/11/13/amazons_retail_outfit_tops_list/
- Source link:
Amazon Stores received the highest number of legal orders under the European Union's Digital Services Act out of all 19 of the tech giants who've been singled out for special attention under the newly introduced laws.
The first tranche of transparency reports from the "very large online platforms and search engines" (aka VLOPs) reveals the online box-shifter received by far the most orders from EU member states under Article 9 of the DSA: 1,081, well ahead of Snapchat with 707. The remaining firms received significantly fewer orders: the next on the list was AliExpress, with just 34 orders.
Who are you calling a VLOP?
Amazon in July [1]sued the EU for calling it a VLOP and in [2]September won a temporary reprieve that postpones some specific Digital Services Act obligations. These include having to create and disclose its advertising database, along with being forced to provide recommender systems that do not rely on profiling for users. The case continues.
Orders result from regulatory contacts, which, according to [3]Amazon's report [PDF], happen when "a bad actor or content has evaded our proactive controls or notice systems," according to Amazon.
Basically, it's something naughty happening on its platform that its own systems haven't detected.
Article 9 of the DSA refers to orders to act against illegal content appearing on a platform or search engine, issued by relevant national judicial or administrative authorities, on the basis of the applicable Union law or national law in compliance with Union law.
[4]
"In the first half of 2023, we received 1,081 contacts from EU member states' authorities. The median time to inform an authority we received their contact was less than one day, and the median time to resolve the issue they surfaced was two days. Of those contacts, 1,081 were related to product and we had no contacts related to App, Audio, Image, Synthetic Media, Text, Video, or Other," the online retail giant said.
[5]
[6]
Amazon said it also responded to 8,863 legal requests from EU member states' authorities for information about its service's users within the legally mandated timeframes.
[7]Google, Amazon among big names in tech axing jobs this week
[8]EU threatens X with DSA penalties over spread of Israel-Hamas disinformation
[9]Obscure internet boutique Amazon sues EU for calling it a Very Large Online Platform
[10]First pushback against EU's Digital Services Act and it's not Google
It's unlikely Amazon's high score could solely be attributed to its popularity. The platform attracts 181.4 million average monthly users across the EU. Snapchat has 102 million average monthly active recipients. Facebook did not receive any orders under Article 9, although it has around 258 million active users in the EU.
The reporting periods under the DSA have yet to be aligned. Amazon reported six months January to June 2023 inclusively. Snapchat covered the same period, but Facebook covered a month less: from 25 April 2023 to 30 September 2023. Other platform used different periods: AliExpress, for example, reported on July, August and September 2023; it reported 34 orders in that period. Even accounting for different reporting period, Amazon accrued a higher number of orders per month (around 180) than any other tech giant.
You found what in the bathroom?
Amazon was not the slowest to respond to orders, though. That honor went to online travel website Booking.com. The holiday accom booker took a median time of 10 days to give effect to an order. Amazon took around two days to do the same.
Amazon said it took 274 million actions on its own initiative, using proactive content moderation tools among other methods to remove content from its EU store.
The DSA came into effect [11]in August as part of a plan to offer consumers protection in dealing with tech giants. It is designed to make them "tackle the spread of illegal content, online disinformation and other societal risks" presented by online service providers.
[12]
Maximum fines of up to 6 percent of total global turnover are possible under the new law, meaning penalties could run into the tens of billions of dollars.
The DSA arrived with another hefty chunk of EU tech legislation, its so-called sister act – the Digital Markets Act. It applies to companies who act as gatekeepers of online services and are designed to ensure equal access for some third-party software. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/11/amazon_sues_eu_dsa/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-wins-court-backing-now-against-eu-tech-rules-ad-clause-2023-09-28/
[3] https://assets.aboutamazon.com/cd/28/4d02dd2e41ec8c6d1bc341e9d919/amazon-eu-store-transparency-report-jan-june-2023.pdf
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/10/amazon_google_snap_zillow_layoffs/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/11/eu_threatens_x_with_dsa/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/11/amazon_sues_eu_dsa/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/27/zalando_vlop_lawsuit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/25/google_eu_dsa/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The first tranche of transparency reports from the "very large online platforms and search engines" (aka VLOPs) reveals the online box-shifter received by far the most orders from EU member states under Article 9 of the DSA: 1,081, well ahead of Snapchat with 707. The remaining firms received significantly fewer orders: the next on the list was AliExpress, with just 34 orders.
Who are you calling a VLOP?
Amazon in July [1]sued the EU for calling it a VLOP and in [2]September won a temporary reprieve that postpones some specific Digital Services Act obligations. These include having to create and disclose its advertising database, along with being forced to provide recommender systems that do not rely on profiling for users. The case continues.
Orders result from regulatory contacts, which, according to [3]Amazon's report [PDF], happen when "a bad actor or content has evaded our proactive controls or notice systems," according to Amazon.
Basically, it's something naughty happening on its platform that its own systems haven't detected.
Article 9 of the DSA refers to orders to act against illegal content appearing on a platform or search engine, issued by relevant national judicial or administrative authorities, on the basis of the applicable Union law or national law in compliance with Union law.
[4]
"In the first half of 2023, we received 1,081 contacts from EU member states' authorities. The median time to inform an authority we received their contact was less than one day, and the median time to resolve the issue they surfaced was two days. Of those contacts, 1,081 were related to product and we had no contacts related to App, Audio, Image, Synthetic Media, Text, Video, or Other," the online retail giant said.
[5]
[6]
Amazon said it also responded to 8,863 legal requests from EU member states' authorities for information about its service's users within the legally mandated timeframes.
[7]Google, Amazon among big names in tech axing jobs this week
[8]EU threatens X with DSA penalties over spread of Israel-Hamas disinformation
[9]Obscure internet boutique Amazon sues EU for calling it a Very Large Online Platform
[10]First pushback against EU's Digital Services Act and it's not Google
It's unlikely Amazon's high score could solely be attributed to its popularity. The platform attracts 181.4 million average monthly users across the EU. Snapchat has 102 million average monthly active recipients. Facebook did not receive any orders under Article 9, although it has around 258 million active users in the EU.
The reporting periods under the DSA have yet to be aligned. Amazon reported six months January to June 2023 inclusively. Snapchat covered the same period, but Facebook covered a month less: from 25 April 2023 to 30 September 2023. Other platform used different periods: AliExpress, for example, reported on July, August and September 2023; it reported 34 orders in that period. Even accounting for different reporting period, Amazon accrued a higher number of orders per month (around 180) than any other tech giant.
You found what in the bathroom?
Amazon was not the slowest to respond to orders, though. That honor went to online travel website Booking.com. The holiday accom booker took a median time of 10 days to give effect to an order. Amazon took around two days to do the same.
Amazon said it took 274 million actions on its own initiative, using proactive content moderation tools among other methods to remove content from its EU store.
The DSA came into effect [11]in August as part of a plan to offer consumers protection in dealing with tech giants. It is designed to make them "tackle the spread of illegal content, online disinformation and other societal risks" presented by online service providers.
[12]
Maximum fines of up to 6 percent of total global turnover are possible under the new law, meaning penalties could run into the tens of billions of dollars.
The DSA arrived with another hefty chunk of EU tech legislation, its so-called sister act – the Digital Markets Act. It applies to companies who act as gatekeepers of online services and are designed to ensure equal access for some third-party software. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/11/amazon_sues_eu_dsa/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-wins-court-backing-now-against-eu-tech-rules-ad-clause-2023-09-28/
[3] https://assets.aboutamazon.com/cd/28/4d02dd2e41ec8c6d1bc341e9d919/amazon-eu-store-transparency-report-jan-june-2023.pdf
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/10/amazon_google_snap_zillow_layoffs/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/11/eu_threatens_x_with_dsa/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/11/amazon_sues_eu_dsa/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/27/zalando_vlop_lawsuit/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/25/google_eu_dsa/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZVJWN9aGJxtK7n5JmbM99wAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Apples and Oranges
Lurko
Most people probably assume the Digital Services Act apples to illegal content and misinformation, but its scope includes counterfeit and non-compliant products. So that covers unsafe Chinese (or other nations) tat like poorly designed chargers, faulty lithium batteries, improperly labelled goods from clothing through cosmetics to computers, dishwashers, power tools, it includes anything that is a knock-off copy.
So my ***guess*** is that much of these requests aren't about "digital" things, they're currently mostly about "stuff", and being raised by the EU's equivalent of the UK's trading standards or customs officers. It'll be a while before the EU's "digital surveillance" structures get up to speed, and that may well see a dramatic escalation in notices to the content platforms.
Apples and Oranges
To be fair to Amazon (!), comparing them on raw numbers to Facebook and Snapchat seems a little unfair. I doubt that the average user on those platforms is doing anything that's as necessarily publicly visible and/or scrutiny-worthy as those who are, by definition, selling something.