Advertising Repositories (Article 39 DSA)

Article 39 DSA obliges very large online platform and search engine providers to maintain public advertising repositories. Amazon Services Europe is currently challenging the obligations stipulated by Article 39 DSA. The present article employs the Amazon case to undertake a more detailed examination of Article 39 DSA. What information exactly must be included in advertising repositories? Does Article 39 DSA oblige its addresses to reveal trade secrets? And does it unjustly violate the principle of equal treatment because only very large providers have to comply with the information obligations of Article 39 DSA? The paper offers a detailed analysis of Article 39(2) DSA, which contains a list of the mandatory content of the advertising repositories. A particular emphasis lies on the disclosure of parameters used for targeted advertising. The disclosure obligations of Article 39(2) DSA are being compared with other disclosure requirements, in particular Articles 26 and 27 DSA. The comparison serves to determine whether information to be published under Article 39(2) DSA still can fall within the scope of trade secret protection or whether they have already been transferred to the public domain through other disclosure requirements. Additionally, the comparison shows whether the transparency obligations of very large providers under Article 39 DSA significantly extend the generally applicable transparency obligations, resulting in unequal treatment that requires justification.