The German Federal Network Agency – the watchdog tasked with overseeing complaints about online platforms in Germany under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) – received significantly more complaints than its EU counterparts about possible breaches of the rules.
In its annual report published last week, the agency said it got some 842 complaints about possible violations of the DSA, which are EU-wide rules that aim to combat illegal content and products online.
Of those, it forwarded some 87 complaints to regulators in other countries because their EU headquarters are registered elsewhere.
By contrast, Spain’s National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) processed some 24 complaints last year. All of them targeted companies established in other member states.
The Dutch Consumer and Markets Authority (ACM) received a total of 256 complaints about online platforms in 2024, of which most, 156, related to providers in other EU member states.
Belgium’s watchdog, the Belgian Institute of Post and Telecommunications (BIPT), said it received some 10 DSA complaints. Most of them were aimed at Telegram, a messaging platform headquartered in Belgium.
Euronews reported in May that the European Commission took Czechia, Cyprus, Poland, Portugal and Spain to the EU’s highest court for failing to apply the DSA correctly.
Countries need to give their regulators enough means to carry out their tasks as well as to draft rules on penalties for infringements of the DSA.
Struggling to transfer complaints
Spain’s CNMC said in its annual report that it has not been granted “all the powers” under the regulation, but it “has begun performing important functions, both nationally and internationally.”
Most of the Spanish complaints concerned the largest online platforms: seven have already been referred to coordinators in other countries, such as Ireland, Sweden, and Belgium, the regulator said.
The Dutch Consumer and Markets Authority (ACM) said in July that it is struggling when transferring complaints about DSA breaches to its counterparts in other EU countries.
“They can’t be transmitted to other Digital Services Coordinators [DSCs] due to technical issues [..] such as non-existing DCSs. A small part is pending due to administrative issues; further information has been requested from the complainant but not yet received,” the report said.
Proceedings
The German watchdog said in its report that it started four administrative proceedings against platforms last year, and it “actively participated” in European Commission proceedings against AliExpress, Temu, TikTok, and X.
The Commission is overseeing the DSA compliance of the largest online platforms: those with more than 45 million users on average per month. They include, for example, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.
The EU executive started several investigations for possible breaches of the DSA into ten online platforms: AliExpress, Pornhub, Facebook, Instagram, XNXX, Stripchat, TikTok, X, Temu, Xvideos. None of those probes have been wrapped up yet.
The DSA became applicable to all online platforms in February 2024.
