Since the beginning of January, it was only a matter of time before the WhatsApp messaging platform would be designated as a ‘Very Large Online Platform’ (VLOP) by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13783/12). This is now a done deal. On Monday 26 January, the institution announced that WhatsApp had joined X, AliExpress, Amazon, Booking.com and Shein as a ‘Very Large Online Platform’.
The platform is named for its ‘open channels’ service, known as WhatsApp Channels, which allows users to open a public channel to broadcast news, updates and announcements to a wider audience.
According to the Commission, this functionality “falls under the definition of an online platform service and is therefore already subject to the general DSA obligations”.
Last year, WhatsApp announced that it had reached the threshold of 45 million active users in the EU, the lower limit for being designated as a ‘Very Large Online Platform’ (see EUROPE 13584/29). Since then, the Commission has launched a technical verification process to distinguish between the actual number of users who use private messaging, which is not subject to the DSA, and those who use open channels.
This designation makes WhatsApp the first messaging service to be subject to the strictest DSA obligations. Meta, the platform’s owner, has seen a third of its services included in the VLOP category, after Facebook and Instagram.
The platform now has four months to comply, after which the Commission may consider it appropriate to analyse the measures taken by WhatsApp to bring itself into line and mitigate the various risks. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)