Platform Economy and Its Impact on Vulnerable Digital Consumers. Rethinking the effectiveness of UCTD

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of digitisation processes has exponentially increased the number of international online transactions, including business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), platform-to-business (P2B) and platform-to-consumer (P2C) relationships. The unlimited economic potential of the Internet for commerce, enables the aggregation and globalisation of markets by offering new opportunities, while also requiring new forms of regulation of the digitised landscape. In such scenarios, in recent years it is fundamental to define a regulatory framework and to ensure a greater protection to vulnerable digital consumers. On this point, the digital revolution, which has overwhelmed the European market, trying also to protect the ‘weak’ party of digital contracts: the consumer-user. The use of digital platforms in contracting, governed at European level by the P2B Regulation, requires the rethinking of the traditional civil law profiles and the promotion of fair and transparent contractual practices. Moreover, the digital transformation is also reshaping standard contract terms, their application and functionality. Indeed, with the emergence of online platforms, supported by algorithmic data analysis and self-enforcing technologies, platform terms and conditions are becoming increasingly common. The digitisation of standard terms poses challenges to the existing regulatory model of Unfair Contracts Terms Directive – recently amended by the ‘Omnibus’ Directive – in several aspects: it needs updating to address the challenges posed by digital services. In light of an analysis of the rapid evolution of the digital landscape, the work, starting from the vulnerable digital consumer, intended to examine the impact of the platform economy on the latter, the (in)adequacy of the UCTD in the digital world and, finally, how the ‘Omnibus’ Directive addresses unfair digital contract terms.