Julian Jaursch and Philipp Lorenz-Spreen | About this page | Sources and acknowledgements

Originally published in August 2023; last updated in November 2024

❗ The European Commission has published a draft delegated act regarding data access. Interested researchers can comment on the draft until December 10, 2024. Find the draft under “draft act” on this Commission page.

<aside> ❗ After all these questions, now what? Next steps for researchers

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Abbreviations

Before getting started with the questions and answers, three abbreviations are good to know (they’ll all be explained in greater detail later):

• DSA: Digital Services Act, a European Union law applying to online platforms throughout the EU
• DSC: Digital Services Coordinator, a new regulator each EU member state has to designate that has a big role to play in enforcing the DSA, particularly regarding data access for researchers
• VLOP: Very large online platform or search engine, i.e., platforms with more than 45 million users in the EU per month, which have to abide by special rules under the DSA, including the data access provisions. When speaking of platforms here, it mostly means VLOPs.

One more note: The EU flag label 🇪🇺 denotes a link to the DSA’s legal text and the information label ℹ️ offers suggestions for more in-depth reading or other sources.

Background and timeline

Why should researchers care about the DSA? What’s in it for them?

Independent regulators in the EU need expertise from academic and civil society researchers to understand online platforms. Without this, strong and sensible enforcement of new EU rules for platforms will not work. The new rules in the 🇪🇺 Digital Services Act (DSA) apply to a range of online platforms, with the goal of creating a “safe and transparent online environment” for consumers.

ℹ️ Analysis of various aspects of the DSA, edited by Joris van Hoboken et al. (Verfassungsblog ebook, 2023)