In the Digital Services Act(1) (the DSA), the European Union has redefined the rules for online intermediary service providers as concerns (i) their liability for the actions of the users of their services and (ii) offering goods and services online. These rules were previously set out in the ­eCommerce Directive(2).

The definition of online intermediary services remains unchanged from the eCommerce Directive. It covers the following three types of services:

• Mere conduit services: the transmission of information provided by a recipient of the service in a communication network, or the provision of access to a communication network, such as internet service providers or direct messaging apps.
• Caching: the transmission of information provided by a recipient of the service in a communication network, involving the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of that information, for the sole purpose of making the information’s onward transmission to other recipients more efficient upon their request, such as content distribution networks.
• Hosting: the storage of information provided by, and at the request of, a recipient of the service such as cloud service providers, online marketplaces, social media, and app stores.