Thai Digital Platform Service Businesses Law – What do platform operators have to comply with? Part II31 July 2024

The qualifications for large and/or unique platforms are prescribed in Section 18 of the Royal Decree on the Operation of Digital Platform Service Businesses that are subject to Prior Notification B.E. 2565 (2022) (the “Royal Degree”) where annual revenue, average monthly active users and potential impact on the general public are taken into consideration.

A large platform is one with gross revenue from services provided to users in Thailand for each type of service exceeding THB300m pa or aggregated gross revenue exceeding THB1,000m pa for all types of service or having users exceeding 10% of the total population of Thailand.

A unique platform is one that:

• poses risks to financial and commercial security, reliability and credibility of electronic data systems, or potential harms to the public and has a high level of possible impacts that may arise from the operation of such platforms. The criteria for assessing the foregoing have been prescribed by the Electronic Transactions Commission (the “Commission”) under the Commission’s Notification re: criteria to evaluate the level of impacts of the operation of digital platform service businesses B.E. 2566 – a “High Risk Platform”; or
• cause impacts to state security, health, environment, energy, communication and telecommunication, transportation and logistics, and public utility and are designated by the Commission as unique/specified platforms – a “High Impact Platform”.

Even though the qualifications of large and/or unique platforms are stipulated under the Royal Decree, Thailand’s Electronic Transactions Development Agency (the “ETDA”) is required to designate types of or any specific platforms which are obliged to comply with additional obligations for large and/or unique platforms under the Royal Decree (or “Designated Platforms”). To date, there has been no list of Designated Platforms issued by the ETDA.

The table below summarises key obligations and level of compliance among general platforms under Section 8, e-commerce and search engines under Section 16 and large/unique platforms under Section 18 of the Royal Degree. A platform operator who fails to comply with the requirements under the Royal Decree could be subject to a business suspension order.