The European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act, exposing OpenAI to fines of up to 6% of global revenue but covering only the parts of the tool that retrieve rather than converse. The article’s argument is that the alternative label, Very Large Online Platform, carried safe harbour, the protection platform law gives companies hosting other people’s content, and that classifying a chatbot that way would have implied a model’s output is third-party material.
The European Commission designated ChatGPT a Very Large Online Search Engine under the Digital Services Act on Monday, imposing transparency and risk-mitigation duties comparable to those on Google and Bing, and exposing OpenAI to fines of up to 6% of global annual revenue. Eliza Gkritsi and Pieter Haeck reported for Politico that the designation is narrow enough to leave the chatbot’s actual conversations largely uncovered.
The distinction is concrete. Asking ChatGPT to name candidates in a local election should now fall under the DSA, while a conversation with the user about who to vote for, in which misinformation might surface, may not.
Why not call it a platform
The Commission’s other option was Very Large Online Platform, the category covering social media and marketplaces, which brings content moderation obligations. It also brings something OpenAI might have welcomed.
