Glossary

An online search engine designated by the European Commission under Article 33 of the Digital Services Act on the basis of at least 45 million average monthly active recipients in the Union.

Three services hold the designation: Google Search, Bing and ChatGPT.

An online platform designated under the same Article 33 threshold. VLOPs and VLOSEs carry the same asymmetric obligations, read against a platform or a search engine respectively.

Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on a Single Market for Digital Services. It applies across the Union in full since 17 February 2024, and to designated services since four months after their designation.

The count that decides designation. Article 24(2) requires every online platform and search engine to publish its average monthly active recipients in the Union, averaged over the preceding six months and refreshed at least every six months.

The methodology counts unique recipients who actually engaged with the service at least once, excludes double-counting across interfaces and domains, excludes incidental exposure through linking or indexing, and excludes automated traffic where possible.

The category of harm that Article 34 requires designated providers to assess: illegal content, fundamental rights, civic discourse and electoral processes and public security, and gender-based violence, public health, minors and mental wellbeing.

The national authority each Member State designates to supervise the DSA in its territory. The Digital Services Coordinator of establishment is the one in the Member State where a provider has its main establishment — for most designated services, Ireland.

Coordinators do not enforce the asymmetric obligations against designated services; that sits with the Commission. They do handle the vetted researcher route under Article 40.

The Member State in which a provider has its head office or registered office in the Union, determining which Digital Services Coordinator is competent. Providers outside the Union must designate a legal representative.

The Commission’s statement that it takes the preliminary view that a provider has breached the DSA. The provider may respond and inspect the file. Preliminary findings are a procedural step, not a decision, and do not establish a breach.

Undertakings offered by a provider during a proceeding which the Commission can make binding under Article 71, closing that part of the case without a finding of infringement. Breaching binding commitments is itself subject to fines of up to 6% of worldwide turnover.

An entity awarded status under Article 22 by a Digital Services Coordinator, whose notices of illegal content platforms must treat with priority. The status applies across all online platforms, not only designated ones.

Article 36. Where extraordinary circumstances lead to a serious threat to public security or public health in the Union, the Commission may require designated providers to assess their contribution to it and apply specific mitigation.

Defined in Article 3(j) as an intermediary service that allows users to input queries to search, in principle, all websites, and returns results in any format. The breadth of “in any format” is what allowed ChatGPT to be designated in the search tier.