Digital Services Act: Know Your Business Customer obligations must apply to all intermediary service providers to offer a meaningful tool for tackling illegal activities and products online.
In a responsible and mature economy, businesses should not be able to operate and have access to the modern necessary infrastructure Europe has to offer without accurately identifying themselves. This applies equally to the offline and to the online world, which is why in 2000 legislation introduced an obligation on businesses to identify themselves on their websites (see Article 5 of the e-Commerce Directive (ECD)). Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) businesses that have the intention of making a profit out of illegal content do not comply with this obligation and do not suffer consequences.
This letter focuses on the “Know Your Business Customer” (KYBC) obligations of the proposal, the signatories of this letter may also be in touch with you independently on this and other important elements of the DSA.
Limiting KYBC obligations to the context of online marketplaces is a missed opportunity to address the broad range of illegal content and counterfeit, unsafe, non-compliant and substandard products online (…)
(… read the whole letter: KYBC letter 18 Feb 2022-updated)
