The Platform Economy

This chapter charts which rules concerning contracts and consumer protection have until now emerged in public and private regulation. These contain a mix of public regulation, co-regulation, codes of conduct, soft law projects to develop model rules, and reputational feedback systems. Also, online dispute resolution can in practice be a source of norms, as norms developed in this context are often through a feedback loop used to improve the quality of services offered by platform operators. Here, the chapter places the focus on the platform economy. Platforms themselves are actively working to provide mechanisms that can, at least partly, overcome the problems of enforcing consumer rights. They have an interest in securing trust between users who, even more than consumers in the offline world, are at a disadvantage in establishing the quality of goods and services and the reliability of their counterparty. Platforms therefore use mechanisms that can fill in a ‘regulatory void’.