Online Safety Act 2023

3 “User-to-user service” and “search service”

(1) In this Act “user-to-user service” means an internet service by means of which content that is generated directly on the service by a user of the service, or uploaded to or shared on the service by a user of the service, may be encountered by another user, or other users, of the service.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)—

(a) it does not matter if content is actually shared with another user or users as long as a service has a functionality that allows such sharing;

(b) it does not matter what proportion of content on a service is content described in that subsection.

(3) For the meaning of “content” and “encounter”, see section 236.

(4) In this Act “search service” means an internet service that is, or includes, a search engine (see section 229).

(5) Subsections (6) and (7) have effect to determine whether an internet service that—

(a) is of a kind described in subsection (1), and

(b) includes a search engine,

is a user-to-user service or a search service for the purposes of this Act.

(6) It is a search service if the only content described in subsection (1) that is enabled by the service is content of any of the following kinds—

(a) content mentioned in paragraph 1, 2 or 3 of Schedule 1 (emails, SMS and MMS messages, one-to-one live aural communications) and related identifying content;

(b) content arising in connection with any of the activities described in paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1 (comments etc on provider content);

(c) content present on a part of the service in relation to which the conditions in paragraph 7(2) of Schedule 1 are met (internal business service conditions).

(7) Otherwise, it is a user-to-user service.