EU’s Digital Services Act Stumbles Out Of The Gate As Member States Fail To Appoint Regulators

The EU’s much-touted Digital Services Act, hailed as the gold standard for whipping those unruly internet platforms into shape, has hit an embarrassing snag. Apparently, the EU forgot to cc a few member states on the ‘Pretty Please Appoint a DSA Regulator’ memo.

The internet sites under the thumb of the DSA aren’t allowed to miss deadlines without facing serious consequences. But, apparently, there’s a bit of a double standard over in the EU, as eight EU countries still haven’t appointed their required DSA regulator yet, well after the law was already supposedly in effect.

Eight EU member states have not yet formally appointed a national regulator tasked with enforcing the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Commission said today (20 March).

And that’s kind of a big deal, because the companies are required to work with those regulators in order to comply with these new rules:

Digital Services Coordinators, intended to be online platforms’ main point of contact in helping the commission with collecting evidence on implementation of the platform rules, were meant to be designated by 17 February.

The commission handles enforcement of the 22 largest platforms or VLOPs including YouTube, Booking.com and Facebook, but for the smaller platforms it’s the national authorities that check compliance.

I know that people who think the EU can do no wrong get on my case every time I point out some of the failings of EU regulations. But I remain stunned that they can set up these big, important, strict rules, insist that companies must follow them or else… and then leave the main “point of contact” for most companies empty in a variety of countries, including Poland, which has a bunch of internet companies impacted by the DSA.

It makes it difficult to take seriously if the EU countries themselves aren’t taking it seriously. It also seems to reinforce the idea that the EU really only cares about regulating the big American companies, for all the talk of how the DSA was meant to regulate all internet companies. The process necessary to regulate the smaller, local companies is a clear afterthought and not considered at all important.

Maybe the EU needs to threaten its own member countries with billion-euro fines until it gets its act together? Or perhaps it could appoint a Special Commissioner for Hiring Our Missing Regulators. Until then, the DSA’s bold promises risk being lost in the EU-style bureaucratic bluster, with the customary EU-style lack of follow-through.