By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Zalando, Europe’s largest on-line vogue retailer, on Tuesday sued the European Fee for placing it in the identical class as Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms concerning new and difficult EU on-line content material guidelines.
Below guidelines generally known as the Digital Companies Act (DSA) which got here into pressure final 12 months, Zalando was labelled a really giant on-line platform (VLOP) as a result of it has greater than 45 million customers.
EU trade chief Thierry Breton in April labelled 19 on-line platforms and engines like google together with 5 Alphabet subsidiaries, two Meta items, two Microsoft companies, Twitter, Alibaba’s AliExpress and Zalando as VLOPs.
Germany’s Zalando, the one European firm on the checklist, contested the labelling methodology and took its case to the Luxembourg-based Court docket of Justice of the European Union, Europe’s high courtroom.
The corporate mentioned the Fee had didn’t take note of the hybrid nature of its enterprise mannequin and the actual fact it doesn’t current a systemic threat of disseminating dangerous or unlawful content material from third events.
“The European Fee misinterpreted our consumer numbers and didn’t acknowledge our primarily retail enterprise mannequin. The variety of European guests who join with our Companions is much beneath the DSA’s threshold to be thought-about as a VLOP,” Zalando CEO Robert Gentz mentioned in an announcement.
Zalando mentioned it has round 31 million ‘common month-to-month lively recipients of its service’, comparable to its Accomplice Program and Linked Retail Program, beneath the DSA threshold of 45 million customers.
The Fee declined to remark.
Breton met Gentz final week and subsequently tweeted that success comes with duty.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Modifying by Christina Fincher)