Amazon Required by European Commission to Provide Information on Digital Markets Act Compliance

TapTechNews July 5th, the European Commission issued a notice requiring Amazon to provide information explaining what measures the platform has taken to comply with the obligations related to transparency in the Digital Markets Act, as well as those related to maintaining the advertising repository and its risk assessment report.

According to the requirement, Amazon must provide all the information requested by the European Commission by July 26, 2024, and the latter will decide the next steps based on the evaluation of the reply, which may include formally initiating litigation procedures in accordance with the anti-trust law.

Specifically, Amazon needs to elaborate whether its recommendation algorithm complies with relevant transparency regulations, which include the input factors, functions, signals, information and metadata of the recommendation system, and the option for users to opt out of personalized recommendations.

In addition, Amazon also needs to provide more information, such as the design, development, deployment, testing and maintenance process of the online interface of the advertising resource library in the Amazon store, and the relevant supporting documents of its risk assessment report.

TapTechNews note: According to Article 74(2) of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Commission can impose a fine for providing inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information when responding to a request for information (RFI).

If Amazon fails to reply to this request in a timely manner, the European Commission will issue a formal order requiring the company to reply. In this case, if the enterprise still fails to reply within the stipulated time limit, it may be subject to a periodic fine.