The EU's General Court dismisses Amazon's request to remove its designation as a Very Large Online Platform under the DSA; platforms with 45M+ users qualify
- Amazon had contested ‘very large platform’ status — EU court says large online marketplaces can pose systemic risk
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon’s designation challenge began with its 2023 petition against the DSA’s large-platform label and was followed by an unsuccessful effort to postpone a public advertising-library obligation. The dismissal turns that earlier interim setback into a ruling on the designation itself.
The decision sits alongside Zalando’s separate challenge to its own designation and later DSA expansion to WhatsApp Channels, showing that the regime is being tested across both marketplaces and communications services.
First-order effects
- Amazon remains subject to the DSA obligations attached to Very Large Online Platform status; its argument that a major marketplace should not be covered has been rejected.
- The ruling reinforces the applicability of requirements Amazon had already sought to delay, including the public online-ad library obligation.
Second-order effects
- Other large marketplaces contesting the label, including Zalando, face a less favorable legal backdrop where user scale and systemic-risk potential support designation.
- Compliance teams at large platforms have stronger reason to treat the 45 million-user threshold as an operational trigger, rather than assume a marketplace model alone creates an exemption.
Third-order effects
- If courts continue to uphold this interpretation, the DSA’s highest-risk tier will more firmly cover distribution platforms beyond social media, widening the set of businesses that must build systemic-risk governance into core operations.
- The contrast with the court’s later partial annulment of Meta Marketplace’s DMA designation suggests EU platform classifications will remain legally contestable, but under statute-specific evidence and tests rather than a single universal platform label.
The trend: EU digital regulation is increasingly applying heightened platform accountability according to reach and systemic-risk exposure, not just whether a service looks like a social network.