The European Commission said that OpenAI’s chatbot will be treated as a very large online search engine under the Digital Services Act.
According to the Financial Times the label means ChatGPT must meet tougher rules on illegal content, privacy and the security of minors or risk chunky fines.
Social media forum Reddit and gaming platform Roblox will be classified as very large online platforms under the same regime. All three services surpassed 45 million monthly users in the EU, the threshold for extra scrutiny under the DSA.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said: “ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox will now be held to a higher standard of scrutiny and accountability in the European Union, in line with their large impact on our citizens and society.”
The services have until the end of December to meet the new obligations. Fines can reach up to six per cent of global revenue if they fail to comply.
OpenAI said it was preparing to meet the extra compliance requirements. Roblox said it was “proud to be the first gaming platform to reach this milestone in the EU” and that “safety is foundational to everything we do and we look forward to continuing our constructive engagement with the European Commission”.
Reddit said the company is “committed to complying with the EU Digital Services Act”. The DSA is already being pushed into generative AI, with X’s Grok chatbot facing an investigation under the law.
The EU is enforcing its AI Act while probing AI services under competition rules, including whether Google broke EU rules with AI overviews.
Washington has been moaning that Brussels unfairly targets US tech outfits. The Commission says its digital laws apply wherever companies are based. In July, Chinese online marketplace AliExpress was fined €550 million under the DSA for failing to do enough to stop illegal products on its platform.
