Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — Quarterly Update Due
FTC Fake Reviews Rule Check (16 CFR Part 465)
Why this matters.
The Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, has applied in full since 17 February 2024. It covers any business offering an intermediary service to users in the EU, wherever the business is based: mere conduit and caching services, hosting services that store content provided by users (from forums and comment sections to file sharing and cloud hosting), online platforms that make that content public (such as marketplaces, social networks and app stores), and online search engines. The obligations are layered, so the more your service does with user content, the more applies. Every intermediary service needs a single point of contact, clear terms and conditions about content moderation, and, if based outside the EU, a legal representative in a Member State.
Hosting services must run a notice-and-action system for reporting illegal content and give reasons when they remove content or restrict accounts. Online platforms and marketplaces face more duties, such as complaint handling, a ban on dark patterns, advertising transparency and, for marketplaces, checking the traders who sell on them. Micro and small enterprises (fewer than 50 staff and annual turnover or balance sheet of no more than €10 million) are exempt from most of the platform-level duties, but not from the basic intermediary and hosting rules. National Digital Services Coordinators enforce the DSA for most businesses, and Member States must allow fines of up to 6% of annual worldwide turnover.
