• The European Commission (EC) has requested that Amazon provide more information regrading its Digital Services Act (DSA) compliance.
• It is specifically looking at the tools used for “transparency of recommender systems”.
• Amazon has been given a deadline of 26th July 2024 to provide the requested information.

In recent weeks the European Commission (EC) has been targeting big tech firms to ensure that they are complying with the region’s latest policies. The latest company to come into focus is Amazon, which has been asked to provide more information regarding the measures it has taken to be compliant with the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The ecommerce giant is specifically being asked to provide more information regarding how recommendations are handled on its platform in order to ascertain DSA compliance.

“In particular, Amazon is asked to provide detailed information on its compliance with the provisions concerning transparency of the recommender systems, the input factors, features, signals, information and metadata applied for such systems and options offered to users to opt out of being profiled for the recommender systems,” the EC explained in a press statement.

“The company also has to provide more information on the design, development, deployment, testing and maintenance of the online interface of Amazon Store’s Ad Library and supporting documents regarding its risk assessment report,” it added.

While it remains to be seen how Amazon will respond to the request, the EC has given the company a deadline by which information must be shared, with it needing to do so before 26th July 2024 in order to showcase its DSA compliance.

Regardless of what information is shared, it will need to be accurate and transparent, with the EC noting that fines can be imposed for failing to do so in good faith.

“The Commission can impose fines for incorrect, incomplete, or misleading information in response to RFIs. In case of failure to reply, the Commission may issue a formal request by decision. In this case, failure to reply by the deadline could lead to the imposition of periodic penalty payments,” it concluded.

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