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The Dutch Consumer and Markets Authority (ACM), which is in charge of enforcing digital platform rules in the Netherlands, says it hits a roadblock when transferring complaints about breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA) to its counterparts in other EU countries.
In its annual report published earlier this month, the ACM said it received a total of 256 complaints about the behaviour of online platforms in 2024, of which most, 156, related to providers in other EU member states.
However, 96 of these 156 complaints are still pending.
“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.
Some 52 complaints were sent to the Irish regulator, three to Germany, two each to Luxembourg and Belgium and one to Lithuania.
The DSA has applied to the largest online platforms since 2023 and to smaller ones since February 2024. It is meant to empower online users by requiring platforms to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and to provide content moderation tools. Among other things, businesses are obliged under the rules to produce transparency reports and to set up ad repositories.
National regulators handle platforms based in their countries with fewer than 45 million users per month, the European Commission deals with the 25 largest companies that exceed those user numbers.
No complaints about Dutch service providers have led to formal investigations so far, because the formal grant of powers to investigate was delayed and the implementing law has not been approved by national parliament.
Most of the complaints the ACM received were about account restrictions, and illegal content.
The Commission took Czechia, Cyprus, Poland, Portugal and Spain to the EU’s highest court in May for failing to apply the DSA correctly.
In a separate case, Bulgaria was given two months to address shortcomings before also being taken to court.