  For almost a decade now, scholarship in and beyond the ACM FAccT community
has been focusing on novel and innovative ways and methodologies to audit the
functioning of algorithmic systems. Over the years, this research idea and
technical project has matured enough to become a regulatory mandate. Today, the
Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Online Safety Act (OSA) have established the
framework within which technology corporations and (traditional) auditors will
develop the `practice' of algorithmic auditing thereby presaging how this
`ecosystem' will develop. In this paper, we systematically review the auditing
provisions in the DSA and the OSA in light of observations from the emerging
industry of algorithmic auditing. Who is likely to occupy this space? What are
some political and ethical tensions that are likely to arise? How are the
mandates of `independent auditing' or `the evaluation of the societal context
of an algorithmic function' likely to play out in practice? By shaping the
picture of the emerging political economy of algorithmic auditing, we draw
attention to strategies and cultures of traditional auditors that risk eroding
important regulatory pillars of the DSA and the OSA. Importantly, we warn that
ambitious research ideas and technical projects of/for algorithmic auditing may
end up crashed by the standardising grip of traditional auditors and/or diluted
within a complex web of (sub-)contractual arrangements, diverse portfolios, and
tight timelines.
