Categories of intermediary services

A “mere conduit” service

  • The transmission of information provided by the recipient of the service in a communication network or
  • The provision of access to a communications network.
  • The Storage of data only for the time reasonably necessary for the transmission.

A “caching” service

  • The transmission of information provided by the recipient of the service in a communication network
  • Involving the automatic, temporary storage of information (performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient the information's onward transmission to other recipients upon their request).

A “hosting” service

  • The storage of information provided by, and at the request of, a recipient of the service;
  • Online platform
    • Hosting service, that, at the request of a recipient of the service, stores and disseminates information to the public (unless that activity is an ancillary feature of another service.
    • Online marketplace
      • Online platform allowing consumers to conclude contracts with traders remotely (B2C).
    • Very large online platform
      • A number of average monthly active recipients of the service ≥ 45 million

Online search engine

  • Intermediary service, that allows users to input queries in order to perform searches of, in principle, all websites.
  • Very large online search engine
    • A number of average monthly active recipients of the service ≥ 45 million.

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