Abstract

The article discusses the impact of changes in the DSA regulation of advertising on online platforms on the activities of influencers. The DSA provisions on advertising are intended to ensure, inter alia, greater transparency and consequently enable users to understand why they see a certain advertisement and who has paid for it. In order to determine whether this goal will be achieved in relation to influencer advertising, the concept of influencer marketing has been briefly discussed in order to delineate the field for further analysis. Subsequently, it has been considered how the online platform advertising transparency requirements set by the DSA relate to the content published by influencers, taking into account specific manifestations of influencers’ commercial activity online. For this purpose, the very definition of advertising under the DSA has been also analysed, since the typical influencer content, in principle, may not fall within its definition. Next, the focus has been placed on demonstrating how unmarked paid collaborations can be considered illegal content and as such fought against under the DSA. Mention has also been made of the possibility to recognise notorious publications of unmarked advertising content by influencers as a systemic risk within the meaning of the DSA.