Google Shopping
Google’s comparison shopping surface, designated as a marketplace platform.
- Tier
- VLOP — very large online platform
- Provider
- Google Ireland Ltd.
- Sector
- Marketplace
- Designated
- 25 April 2023
- Obligations from
- 25 August 2023
- EU users at designation
- 70.8 million
- Formal proceedings
- None to date
- Court challenges
- None
Designated 25 April 2023 on 70.8 million average monthly active recipients in the Union.
As a platform allowing consumers to conclude distance contracts with traders, Google Shopping carries the DSA’s marketplace duties — trader traceability, compliance by design, and the right to information — on top of the asymmetric tier.
Where Google Shopping sits in the tier
Designation is not a ranking, and the obligations do not scale with size: the smallest designated service carries exactly the same duties in Articles 33 to 43 as the largest.
Marketplace duties stack underneath the designated tier
A platform that lets consumers conclude distance contracts with traders carries Section 4 of Chapter III on top of everything designation adds. Article 30 is a know-your-business-customer rule: before a trader can offer anything, the marketplace must collect name, contact details, payment account, and trade register information, and make best efforts to assess whether that information is reliable and complete.
Article 31 requires compliance by design — the interface must be built so traders can actually meet their own legal obligations. Article 32 is the right to information: where the provider learns an illegal product was offered, it must tell affected consumers who bought it in the preceding six months, identify the trader, and set out the means of redress.
This is where enforcement against marketplaces has concentrated. Every marketplace proceeding opened to date pairs an allegation about illegal products with an allegation about the systems meant to keep them off the service.
- Article 30
- Trader traceability, with a Commission-run database of trader information under Article 32(3).
- Article 28
- Protection of minors, where the marketplace is accessible to them.
Google Shopping timeline
- 25 April 2023 Designated a VLOP by Commission decision.
- 25 August 2023 Articles 33 to 43 begin to apply, four months after notification.
What Google Shopping has to do
Designation applies the asymmetric obligations in Articles 33 to 43. They are the same for every designated service, read against a platform surface. Terms used on this page are collected in the glossary.
- Article 34 Systemic risk assessment
- Article 35 Mitigation of risks
- Article 37 Independent audit
- Article 38 Recommender systems without profiling
- Article 39 Advertising repository
- Article 40 Data access for the Commission and vetted researchers
- Article 41 Internal compliance function
- Article 42 Transparency reporting
- Article 43 Supervisory fee
Related designations
Also designated under Google Ireland Ltd.: Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps.
Other marketplace services in the tier: Amazon Store, Shein, AliExpress, Temu, Zalando.
Designated on the same day (25 April 2023): Google Search, Bing, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Store, Wikipedia, TikTok, Pinterest, App Store, X, AliExpress, Snapchat, Zalando, LinkedIn, Booking.com.