# DSA Terms and Conditions Requirements — legal context bundle > Curated from overview.legal on 2026-08-22. Canonical page: https://overview.legal/topics/dsa-terms-conditions-requirements > Sources are cited per item. Verify against the official texts before relying on them. This new topic is needed to specifically address the requirements for terms and conditions documents under the DSA, including transparency, accessibility, and mandatory content requirements for digital service providers. ## Overview ## Legal Framework DSA Article 14 governs the terms and conditions requirements applicable to hosting service providers. The provision imposes a transparency obligation: providers must set out in their terms and conditions any restrictions they impose on the use of their services in relation to information provided by recipients. These restrictions may stem from compliance with EU law, national law of Member States, or the provider's own policies. The terms must be drafted in clear, plain, and intelligible language, ensuring that recipients can genuinely understand what conduct is permitted and what is prohibited on the platform. Recital 54 reinforces this framework by requiring that when a hosting provider decides to remove, disable access to, or otherwise restrict the visibility of information provided by a recipient—whether following a notice or on its own initiative, including through automated means—the provider must inform the affected recipient of that decision in a clear and easily comprehensible manner. This notification obligation operates as a practical extension of the transparency principles embedded in Article 14, ensuring that terms and conditions are not merely static documents but are actively operationalized when enforcement actions are taken. The DSA's terms and conditions regime builds upon the intermediary liability framework previously established under the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC (Articles 12–15), which governed mere conduit, caching, and hosting liability limitations. The DSA modernizes this framework by imposing affirmative content and transparency duties on providers that avail themselves of liability protections. ## Key Developments The DSA represents a shift from the E-Commerce Directive's relatively light-touch approach to a more prescriptive transparency regime. Under the earlier directive, terms and conditions were largely unregulated beyond general good-faith obligations. The DSA now requires that terms and conditions specifically articulate content moderation policies and restrictions, creating an enforceable link between what providers promise in their terms and how they actually moderate content. The Court of Justice of the European Union has consistently emphasized that intermediary obligations must be interpreted to balance liability limitations with fundamental rights, particularly freedom of expression. This jurisprudential backdrop informs how DSA Article 14 terms must be drafted: restrictions cannot be so vague as to permit arbitrary enforcement, nor so broad as to chill lawful expression. The notification requirement in Recital 54 further establishes that enforcement of terms must itself be transparent, giving recipients meaningful opportunity to understand and potentially challenge moderation decisions. ## Practical Guidance - Draft terms and conditions that explicitly enumerate all content restrictions, categorized by source: EU legal requirements, applicable national law, and platform-specific policies. Avoid catch-all clauses that fail to specify what is prohibited. - Ensure terms are written in plain, intelligible language accessible to the average user. Technical legal jargon should be minimized or accompanied by plain-language summaries. - Implement a notification mechanism that triggers whenever content is removed or restricted, informing the affected recipient of the specific provision invoked, the factual basis for the decision, and any available redress mechanisms. - Where automated tools are used for content moderation, terms and conditions must disclose this practice and explain the role of automated means in enforcing restrictions, consistent with Recital 54's transparency mandate. - Maintain version control and historical records of terms and conditions, as enforcement actions will be evaluated against the terms in effect at the time of the alleged violation. ## Legislation (full text of key provisions) ### Terms and conditions *Source: DSA, dsa-art-14-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/94212* ### Recital 45 — intermediary service terms and conditions transparency *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-45-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95487* Whilst the freedom of contract of providers of intermediary services should in principle be respected, it is appropriate to set certain rules on the content, application and enforcement of the terms and conditions of those providers in the interests of transparency, the protection of recipients of the service and the avoidance of unfair or arbitrary outcomes. Providers of the intermediary services should clearly indicate and maintain up-to-date in their terms and conditions the information as to the grounds on the basis of which they may restrict the provision of their services. In particular, they should include information on any policies, procedures, measures and tools used for the purpose of content moderation, including algorithmic decision-making and human review, as well as the rules of procedure of their internal complaint-handling system. They should also provide easily accessible information on the right to terminate the use of the service. Providers of intermediary services may use graphical elements in their terms of service, such as icons or images, to illustrate the main elements of the information requirements set out in this Regulation. Providers should inform recipients of their service through appropriate means of significant changes made to terms and conditions, for instance when they modify the rules on information that is permitted on their service, or other such changes which could directly impact the ability of the recipients to make use of the service. ### Recital 39 — redress mechanisms and content restoration orders *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-39-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95475* The requirements to provide information on redress mechanisms available to the provider of the intermediary service and to the recipient of the service who provided the content include a requirement to provide information about administrative complaint-handling mechanisms and judicial redress including appeals against orders issued by judicial authorities. Moreover, Digital Services Coordinators could develop national tools and guidance as regards complaint and redress mechanisms applicable in their respective territory, in order to facilitate access to such mechanisms by recipients of the service. Finally, when applying this Regulation Member States should respect the fundamental right to an effective judicial remedy and to a fair trial as provided for in Article 47 of the Charter. This Regulation should therefore not prevent the relevant national judicial or administrative authorities from issuing, on the basis of the applicable Union or national law, an order to restore content, where such content was in compliance with the terms and conditions of the provider of the intermediary service but has been erroneously considered as illegal by that provider and has been removed. ### Recital 46 — child-friendly terms explanation for minors *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-46-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95489* Providers of intermediary services that are primarily directed at minors, for example through the design or marketing of the service, or which are used predominantly by minors, should make particular efforts to render the explanation of their terms and conditions easily understandable to minors. ### Recital 48 — very large platforms transparency requirements *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-48-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95493* Given their special role and reach, it is appropriate to impose on very large online platforms and very large online search engines additional requirements regarding information and transparency of their terms and conditions. Consequently, providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines should provide their terms and conditions in the official languages of all Member States in which they offer their services and should also provide recipients of the services with a concise and easily readable summary of the main elements of the terms and conditions. Such summaries should identify the main elements of the information requirements, including the possibility of easily opting out from optional clauses. ### Recital 49 — intermediary services annual transparency reporting *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-49-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95495* To ensure an adequate level of transparency and accountability, providers of intermediary services should make publicly available an annual report in a machine-readable format, in accordance with the harmonised requirements contained in this Regulation, on the content moderation in which they engage, including the measures taken as a result of the application and enforcement of their terms and conditions. However, in order to avoid disproportionate burdens, those transparency reporting obligations should not apply to providers that are micro or small enterprises as defined in Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC (25) and which are not very large online platforms within the meaning of this Regulation. ### Recital 50 — hosting service notice and action mechanisms *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-50-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95497* Providers of hosting services play a particularly important role in tackling illegal content online, as they store information provided by and at the request of the recipients of the service and typically give other recipients access thereto, sometimes on a large scale. It is important that all providers of hosting services, regardless of their size, put in place easily accessible and user-friendly notice and action mechanisms that facilitate the notification of specific items of information that the notifying party considers to be illegal content to the provider of hosting services concerned (‘notice’), pursuant to which that provider can decide whether or not it agrees with that assessment and wishes to remove or disable access to that content (‘action’). Such mechanisms should be clearly identifiable, located close to the information in question and at least as easy to find and use as notification mechanisms for content that violates the terms and conditions of the hosting service provider. Provided the requirements on notices are met, it should be possible for individuals or entities to notify multiple specific items of allegedly illegal content through a single notice in order to ensure the effective operation of notice and action mechanisms. The notification mechanism should allow, but not require, the identification of the individual or the entity submitting a notice. For some types of items of information notified, the identity of the individual or the entity submitting a notice might be necessary to determine whether the information in question constitutes illegal content, as alleged. The obligation to put in place notice and action mechanisms should apply, for instance, to file storage and sharing services, web hosting services, advertising servers and paste bins, in so far as they qualify as hosting services covered by this Regulation. ### Recital 54 — hosting service content restriction notification obligations *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-54-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95505* Where a provider of hosting services decides, on the ground that the information provided by the recipients is illegal content or is incompatible with its terms and conditions, to remove or disable access to information provided by a recipient of the service or to otherwise restrict its visibility or monetisation, for instance following receipt of a notice or acting on its own initiative, including exclusively by automated means, that provider should inform in a clear and easily comprehensible way the recipient of its decision, the reasons for its decision and the available possibilities for redress to contest the decision, in view of the negative consequences that such decisions may have for the recipient, including as regards the exercise of its fundamental right to freedom of expression. That obligation should apply irrespective of the reasons for the decision, in particular whether the action has been taken because the information notified is considered to be illegal content or incompatible with the applicable terms and conditions. Where the decision was taken following receipt of a notice, the provider of hosting services should only reveal the identity of the person or entity who submitted the notice to the recipient of the service where this information is necessary to identify the illegality of the content, such as in cases of infringements of intellectual property rights. ### Recital 58 — internal complaint handling systems *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-58-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95513* Recipients of the service should be able to easily and effectively contest certain decisions of providers of online platforms concerning the illegality of content or its incompatibility with the terms and conditions that negatively affect them. Therefore, providers of online platforms should be required to provide for internal complaint-handling systems, which meet certain conditions that aim to ensure that the systems are easily accessible and lead to swift, non-discriminatory, non-arbitrary and fair outcomes, and are subject to human review where automated means are used. Such systems should enable all recipients of the service to lodge a complaint and should not set formal requirements, such as referral to specific, relevant legal provisions or elaborate legal explanations. Recipients of the service who submitted a notice through the notice and action mechanism provided for in this Regulation or through the notification mechanism for content that violate the terms and conditions of the provider of online platforms should be entitled to use the complaint mechanism to contest the decision of the provider of online platforms on their notices, including when they consider that the action taken by that provider was not adequate. The possibility to lodge a complaint for the reversal of the contested decisions should be available for at least six months, to be calculated from the moment at which the provider of online platforms informed the recipient of the service of the decision. ### Recital 64 — suspension of abusive platform users *Source: DSA, dsa-rec-64-en, 2022-10-19 — https://overview.legal/posts/95525* Under certain conditions, providers of online platforms should temporarily suspend their relevant activities in respect of the person engaged in abusive behaviour. This is without prejudice to the freedom by providers of online platforms to determine their terms and conditions and establish stricter measures in the case of manifestly illegal content related to serious crimes, such as child sexual abuse material. For reasons of transparency, this possibility should be set out, clearly and in sufficient detail, in the terms and conditions of the online platforms. Redress should always be open to the decisions taken in this regard by providers of online platforms and they should be subject to oversight by the competent Digital Services Coordinator. Providers of online platforms should send a prior warning before deciding on the suspension, which should include the reasons for the possible suspension and the means of redress against the decision of the providers of the online platform. When deciding on the suspension, providers of online platforms should send the statement of reasons in accordance with the rules set out in this Regulation. The rules of this Regulation on misuse should not prevent providers of online platforms from taking other measures to address the provision of illegal content by recipients of their service or other misuse of their services, including through the violation of their terms and conditions, in accordance with the applicable Union and national law. Those rules are without prejudice to any possibility to hold the persons engaged in misuse liable, including for damages, provided for in Union or national law. ## Related topics - **DSA Scope and Digital Services Coverage** — https://overview.legal/topics/dsa-scope-digital-services The content is from the DSA (Digital Services Act), not the AI Act. A dedicated topic for DSA scope is needed to distinguish it from AI Act scope provisions and - **Supervision** — https://overview.legal/topics/toezicht Oversight and enforcement by supervisory authorities - **Hosting Services under DSA** — https://overview.legal/topics/hosting-services-dsa While intermediary liability and DSA scope topics exist, there is no dedicated topic specifically for hosting services, their liability conditions, exemptions, - **Minors** — https://overview.legal/topics/minderjarigen Special protections for children under GDPR - **Transparency** — https://overview.legal/topics/transparantie Openness about data processing activities - **VLOP/VLSE Framework** — https://overview.legal/topics/vlop-vlse-regulatory-framework-overview The content title specifically focuses on 'Very large online platforms and very large online search engines' as a distinct regulatory category under the DSA. A --- Generated by overview.legal · https://overview.legal/topics/dsa-terms-conditions-requirements · 2026-08-22