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Jurisdiction(s):
European Union

EU Digital Services Act: Intermediary Liability Defences (Mere Conduit, Caching, Hosting), Notice and Action, Monitoring Limits, Injunctions, and Interaction with DSM Copyright, Terrorist Content and Violence against Women Takedown Orders

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Practice notes
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This Practice Note outlines the EU approach to the liability of intermediary service providers and the conditional exemptions from liability under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, the EU Digital Services Act (EU DSA). These liability principles were first set out in Directive 2000/31/EC, the EU E‑Commerce Directive. From 17 February 2024, the EU DSA repealed and replaced the E‑Commerce Directive’s liability exemptions and introduced a notice and action mechanism for hosting providers. Where illegal content is provided by recipients of the services, the exemptions apply to information society service providers (ISSPs) delivering intermediary services that involve only the technical and automatic handling of content. The exemptions examined in this Practice Note are:

  • mere conduit
  • caching
  • hosting

The Practice Note also briefly considers Regulation (EU) 2021/784 on addressing the dissemination of terrorist content online, Directive (EU) 2024/1385 on combating violence against women and Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (the EU DSM Copyright Directive), insofar as they affect ISSPs’ liability for content and the application of the liability defences.

Background

Prior to the EU DSA, the EU E‑Commerce Directive provided the regulatory framework in the EU...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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