BDI statement on the Digital Services Act
4.
Transparency
Balanced and proportionate transparency principles are welcome for platform operations and also for product recommendations and advertising. Transparency and traceability of decisions taken by digital services will improve the performance and benefits of the platform for all stakeholders, thus contributing to greater trust and confidence in online platforms and other intermediaries. Many service providers already offer additional information on a voluntary basis to make this service stand out from the crowd. This is because user trust in digital services is central to most providers. However, where there are transparency deficits, it may make sense to make improvements after careful legislative scrutiny. Balanced information obligations towards commercial users of digital intermediaries are also sensible. In principle, for example, the provider of an online intermediary service who suspends or terminates its services for a commercial user should, as far as possible, inform the user in advance or at least immediately of the suspension and briefly give him the reasons for this decision in each individual case. At the same time, the injured party should be provided with the infringer's contact details in order to enable the seamless enforcement of legal claims. Such transparency and information obligations are appropriate and are already partly regulated in the P2B Regulation, which only has to be applied since 12 July. However, for all transparency obligations, it is important that no disproportionate requirements are imposed. Furthermore, transparency obligations must not lead to the disclosure of business secrets, such as specific algorithms or central modes of operation of the platform service. Revealing too much information about how algorithms work can also lead to their being compromised by fraudulent actors (hackers, spammers, etc.) At best, the publication of generic, non-detailed information should be required. This is already made clear in the P2B Regulation.
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