On 14 October 2026 the EU General Court dismissed Technius Ltd's challenge to the Commission's designation of Stripchat as a very large online platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act, according to a PYMNTS/CPI report of MLex's coverage. The report says the Court held that the Commission could rely on the information available when it designated Stripchat in December 2023. That holds even though later revisions showed the platform below the threshold. We have not been able to retrieve the judgment text, so what follows rests on the press reports and the procedural record, not on the Court's reasoning.
What was decided
Technius, Stripchat's Cyprus-based operator, filed Case T-134/24 on 29 February 2024. The Official Journal notice was published on 13 May 2024. As summarised by a policy tracker, the action sought annulment of Commission decision C(2023) 8844 of 20 December 2023, which designated Stripchat under Article 33(4) of the DSA. Technius argued that the Commission relied on its own estimates of Stripchat's EU users and that the third-party data behind them was inconsistent and incorrect. One example it cited was a member state where estimated users exceeded the entire population.
The DSA applies its heaviest duties to platforms with at least 45 million average monthly active recipients in the EU. Those duties cover systemic risk assessments, transparency reporting and independent audits. The Commission's list of designated VLOPs shows that it adopted a decision terminating Stripchat's designation on 27 May 2025, and that VLOP obligations stopped applying four months after that decision. So the Commission itself accepted that the platform was no longer over the line. The Court nonetheless treated the original decision as lawful on the facts then available.
The strongest case for the Court's approach
The argument for the Court is serious. Platforms hold their own user data, and regulators must act on what they can obtain. If a designation could be unwound whenever a provider later produced better numbers, every designation would invite litigation over retrospective data. A VLOP could stall its obligations for years by contesting an estimate. Judging legality at the moment of the decision is also the normal rule in EU administrative law. A designation is lawful if it was reasonable when made, and the DSA has its own route for correcting the position later. The Commission used that route.
Where the proportionality concern remains
The procedural record shows why Technius's complaint was not frivolous. After the designation was withdrawn, the Commission adopted a supervisory fee decision, C(2025) 8119, on 26 November 2025. Technius challenged it in Case T-70/26, filed on 3 February 2026. A tracker lists that case as under deliberation. The wider point is that a designation carries costs beyond compliance work. It can trigger fees, set the terms for later enforcement, and give the regulator a stronger hand.
That creates an asymmetry. Regulators design thresholds that bind firms, but the firms depend on regulator-held or third-party data to find out whether they are bound. The 45 million figure is a bright line only if the count is reliable. If third-party estimates can be wrong by a wide margin, as Technius alleged, then a bright line in law becomes a soft line in practice. For smaller and mid-sized platforms near the threshold, that uncertainty is a real cost.
Stripchat is also not a sympathetic test case. The Commission opened a separate investigation on 27 May 2025 into the platform's protection of minors, and the VLOP list notes preliminary findings dated 26 March 2026. The merits of that investigation are a separate question, and general DSA duties on minors' safety continue to apply to Stripchat whatever its VLOP status. The ruling should not be read as a verdict on whether adult platforms need stronger age protections. It is a narrow ruling about how the Commission counts users.
What the Commission should do next
A pro-innovation reading of the DSA would not ask the Court to disregard the Commission's timing needs. It would ask the Commission to make its counting more transparent and more contestable at the time of designation. Three changes follow from that:
- Publish the methodology and data sources used for user estimates, with enough detail for a provider to test them against its own figures.
- Give the provider a real chance to rebut the estimate before the decision, with a short deadline so enforcement is not delayed.
- Where a provider shows that its figure falls below 45 million on corrected data, make clear how the Commission will handle fees and obligations for the period already covered.
None of this weakens the DSA. It would reduce the chance that a platform is regulated as a systemic risk on the basis of a faulty count, and it would improve the quality of the evidence the Commission relies on in court.
Why it matters beyond one platform
The DSA's VLOP regime is meant to concentrate scrutiny on the services that shape public debate at scale. That purpose is served by accurate designations. A regime that treats a mistaken count as lawful so long as it was reasonable when made protects regulators from hindsight, but it also puts the cost of data error on the firm. The follow-on fee litigation will show whether the EU courts are willing to look at that cost separately from the legality of the designation. Until then, platforms near the threshold should assume that the Commission's early numbers will stand, and that the way to challenge them is before the decision, not after.