THE EUROPEAN UNION AND EUROPEAN STATES’ DEVELOPMENTS 485 platforms’ business models, without, however, making any legal assessment or impact analysis on the platforms themselves. Mobile ecosystems, online advertising platforms, marketplaces and ecommerce platforms are some of the issues discussed in this working document. 2017 was an important year for the online parity clause discussion. The Report on the monitoring exercise carried out in the online hotel booking sector by EU competition authorities in 2016 was published in April 201716. This collaboration was commissioned by the European Competition Network (ECN) together with the National Competition Authorities (NCA) of ten countries and also the DG Competition. This study was the beginning of a broader concern, because it was discovered that the issues involving online booking platforms and the parity clause are shared by all countries, demanding necessary worldwide actions17. In addition to the abovementioned report, an impact assessment on fairness in platform-to-business relations was published18. The main focus was to evaluate the negative impact of online platforms, especially the bargaining power of platforms in the platform-to-business relation and the level of dependence of small businesses on the digital environment. Meanwhile, important developments related to the online parity clause analysis took place in April 2018. The first important aspect was a Commission’s decision to select a group of 15 experts to study the Online Platform Economy through an Observatory19. This group would provide Commission important data and analysis on the online platform market, especially its harmful practices in commercial transactions related through intermediation service20. Linked to this decision was a new regulation proposal21 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation, as well as a Commission staff working document22 on the impact assessment of the aforementioned proposal. This proposal presents rules and descriptions on differentiated treatment which they give, or may give, in relation to, on the one hand, goods or services offered to consumers through those online intermediation 16 Available at https://ec.europa.eu/competition/ecn/hotel_monitoring_report_en.pdf. 17 MANCA, Federica. The online hotel booking monitoring exercise. Italian Antitrust Review, v. 5, no. 1, 2018, pp. 74-76. 18 Available at http://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/initiatives/ares-2017-5222469_en. 19 C(2018) 2393 final. 20 Art. 2(a). 21 COM(2018) 238 final. 22 SWD(2018) 138 final.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE4NzM5Nw==