EU Rules on Transparency and Liability for Online Platforms Challenges and Perspectives

This volume represents the final scholarly output of the research project entitled Towards Stricter Rules on Transparency and Liability for Online Platforms in the European Digital Single Market, which was selected for funding by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca) under the PRIN 2022 research programme, within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) – Next Generation EU, and was formally launched in September 2023. The project has been coordinated by a team of EU law academics: Giuseppe Morgese (Principal Investigator, University of Bari Aldo Moro), Ilaria Ottaviano (Associate Investigator, “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara), Sara Pugliese (Associate Investigator, “Parthenope” University of Naples), and Nicola Ruccia (Associate Investigator, University of Sannio).Particular attention has been devoted to the current Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), which together constitute the cornerstone of the EU’s renewed approach to platform governance. These instruments introduce differentiated obligations calibrated to the systemic relevance and functional roles of online platforms, with the explicit aim of addressing risks associated with illegal content, market power and asymmetric dependencies. Alongside the DSA and the DMA, the project has examined the growing relevance of data as an object of regulation. The increasing interdependence between platform activity, data accumulation, and market power has made data governance a crucial component of EU’s transparency and liability regimes. Accordingly, such issues have been analysed as integral elements of the broader Digital Single Market framework. In parallel, the project has addressed selected aspects of artificial intelligence, insofar as algorithmic decision-making systems deployed by online platforms raise specific concerns with regard to opacity, accountability, and the attribution of responsibility.