Amazon strikes back. The platform founded by Jeff Bezos, a real juggernaut of online commerce, announced this Wednesday, July 12, its referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Amazon points to the new European legislation concerning online platforms.
The Commission unveiled at the end of April a list of 19 “very large platforms”, including Amazon, but also Twitter, TikTok, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft, which will be subject to reinforced controls from August 25.
Under the Digital Services Act (DSA), these companies will be placed under the scrutiny of the European Commission and subject to tougher rules, including a requirement for an annual independent audit to ensure they are effectively tackling against misinformation, online hate or counterfeits.
They will have to open their algorithms to experts from the European executive and offer access to their data to approved researchers. They will also have to analyze themselves the risks associated with their services in terms of illegal content and will have to put in place the means to mitigate them.
“Amazon does not fit the DSA’s description of a very large online platform and therefore should not be referred to as such,” he added. The company considers itself discriminated against compared to its competitors in the mass distribution sector.
“If the very large platform designation were to apply to Amazon and not to other large retailers in the EU, Amazon would be unfairly singled out and forced to meet costly administrative obligations,” the spokesperson continued.