The European Observatory on the Online Platform Economy published, on Friday 10 July, several draft reports to mark the entry into force of the regulation (2019/1150) known as ‘platform-to-business’ (P2B). This document, open for consultation until 8 September, will feed into the European Commission's work on digital services.
In April 2018, the Commission presented a legislative package to restore the balance between digital platforms and their professional users (see EUROPE 12010/4). This package consisted of a draft regulation, adopted in 2019 (see EUROPE 12194/2), and a decision establishing a European Observatory on the Online Platform Economy composed of 15 independent experts. This observatory has just delivered the first results of its work.
The reports deal respectively with indicators that could be used to monitor the economy of the online platform, the unfair practice of differential treatment and data as a power factor. They are to be supplemented by the end of the year by two further reports on online advertising and issues related to platforms with significant market power.
Sensitive issues
The three reports therefore deal with sensitive issues, especially since the Commission has set itself the objective of presenting new regulations on platforms by the end of 2020.
The European institution is indeed planning three initiatives: - a Digital Services Act package, to increase and harmonise the responsibilities of information service providers; – the ex ante regulation to address competition concerns raised by “platforms with significant network effects acting as gatekeepers”. - a new competitive tool.
Identifying large platforms
In its report on evaluation and economic indicators, the Observatory suggests several indicators to monitor the platform economy.
To account for the economic importance of a platform, it suggests, for example, taking into account: - the volume of sales that transit through it (in monetary value, traffic flows, advertising, etc.); - the size of the platform and its importance (on this point, it stresses that “specific regulatory objectives may require different parameters of scope” and takes stock of the different sectoral legislations); - the data on the data.
To account for the power of a platform, it proposes to consider a company's dependence on a platform, the share of consumer attention to the platform and acquisitions as a competitive strategy.
On the latter, the Observatory suggests considering new obligations for major platforms to report their mergers and acquisitions to the European Commission for research and ex-post monitoring purposes, in order to detect possible operations aimed at nipping potential start-up competition in the bud.
These three reports, which are accompanied by an introductory remark from the Observatory's President, Bruno Liebhaberg, are open for stakeholder consultation from 6 July until 8 September.
See the three reports of the European Observatory: https://bit.ly/325eK8G (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)