Intermediary service providers

The Digital Services Act (DSA) applies to all intermediary service providers, regardless of their place of establishment, whenever they offer services to recipients who are located in or have a place of establishment in the European Union.

Categories of Intermediary Service Providers

Category 1: Intermediary Service Providers

Organisations that provide services consisting of a "mere conduit" service, a “caching” service, or a “hosting” service. Categories 2-4 are subsets of Category 1.

Category 2: Providers of Hosting Services

Hosting services are intermediary services which store information provided by the recipients of the service at their request.

Category 3: Online platforms

Online platform: a hosting service that, at the request of a recipient of the service, stores and disseminates information to the public, unless that activity is a minor and purely ancillary feature of another service or a minor functionality of the principal service and, for objective and technical reasons, cannot be used without that other service, and the integration of the feature or functionality into the other service is not a means to circumvent the applicability of the DSA¹.

Category 4: Very large online platforms or very large online search engines

Very Large Online Platforms (VLOP) or Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSE): online platforms or search engines that have an average monthly active recipients of the service in the European Union equal to or higher than 45 million (representing 10% of the EU population).

Obligations of intermediary service providers

Intermediary service providers which are classified as small or micro enterprises, and which are not Very Large Online Platforms or Very Large Online Search Engines are exempt from certain obligations².

An Online Platform or Online Search Engine is designated by the European Commission as very large when it has an average monthly active recipients of the service in the European Union equal to or higher than 45 million.

The European Commission designated, as of 26 April 2024³:

As Very Large Online Platforms: Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple App Store, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Pornhub, Snapchat, Stripchat, TikTok, Twitter (X), Wikipedia, Xvideos, YouTube, Zalando and Shein;
As Very Large Online Search Engine: Bing and Google Search.

The obligations arising from the DSA are adapted to the type of intermediary service provided and the size of the intermediary service provider, with the following obligations applicable according to the type of intermediary service:

DSA Article	Description	Intermediary Services⁴	Hosting Services⁵	Online Platforms⁶	Online platforms B2C⁷	VLOP / VLOSE⁸
11	Designation of contact point for authorities	√	√	√	√	√
12	Designation of contact point for service recipients	√	√	√	√	√
13	Nomination of legal representative in EU territory by providers not established in the EU	√	√	√	√	√
14	Clear and intelligible terms and conditions of use	√	√	√	√	√
15	Annual transparency reports of intermediary service providers	√	√	√	√	√
16	Creation of notice and action mechanisms		√	√	√	√
17	Statement of reasons in support of moderation decisions taken against users of the service		√	√	√	√
18	Notification of suspicions of criminal offences		√	√	√	√
20	Establishment of an internal complaint-handling system			√	√	√
21	Information to users on out-of-court dispute settlement and respective conditions			√	√	√
22	Diligent cooperation with trusted flaggers			√	√	√
23	Measures and protection against misuse, including with regard to manifestly illegal content			√	√	√
24	Transparency reporting obligations for providers of online platforms			√	√	√
25	Online interface design and organisation, and prohibition of “dark patterns”			√	√	√
26	Control of presentation of advertising on online platforms			√	√	√
27	Recommender system transparency			√	√	√
28	Online protection of minors			√	√	√
30	Traceability of traders				√	√
31	Design of appropriate online interface for traders				√	√
32	Obligation to inform consumers where illegal products or services have been offered on the platform				√	√
34	Obligations to identify, analyse and assess systemic risks					√
35	Adoption of mitigation measures					√
36	Adoption of crisis response mechanism					√
37	Requirement for independent auditing					√
38	Obligation to provide options for recommender systems not based on profiling					√
39	Requirement to create a repository of online advertising					√
40	Conditions of data access and scrutiny					√
41	Obligation to create compliance functions					√
42	Transparency reporting obligations					√
43	Obligation to pay an annual supervisory fee					√
45	Drawing up of codes of conduct for proper application of the DSA					√
46	Codes of conduct for online advertising					√
48	Participation in the drawing up of crisis protocols					√

Notification of legal representatives

Providers of intermediary services which offer services in the European Union, but which have no establishment in the European Union, shall designate, in writing, a legal or natural person to act as their legal representative in one of the Member States where the provider offers its services⁹.

Where legal representatives are resident or established in Portugal, intermediary service providers are required to communicate the following information to ANACOM, as Digital Services Coordinator in Portugal, for the purpose of this designation:

a) The identification details of the provider, including its name or business name, its domicile or registered office, its identification number and, if different, its tax identification number; and

b) The identification and contact details of the legal representative, including the representative's name or business name and address, email address and telephone number for communications and notifications.

This information must be provided in a communication that is signed by a person or persons with powers to bind the provider, attaching proof of the capacity and powers of the signatory or signatories for this purpose, sent by email to dsc@anacom.pt.

Notes

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¹ Article 3, paragraph i, of the DSA.
² Article 15(2), and article 19 and 29 of the DSA.
³ Available at: Supervision of the designated very large online platforms and search engines under RSD | Shaping Europe's digital future (europa.eu)

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/list-designated-vlops-and-vloses.
⁴ Intermediary service providers (mere conduit, caching, hosting, including online platforms and online search engines).
⁵ Providers of hosting service (including online platforms).
⁶ Online platforms.
⁷ Online platforms which allow consumers to conclude distance contracts with traders (marketplaces).
⁸ Very large online platforms (VLOP) and very large online search engines (VLOSE).
⁹ Article 13 of the DSA.