The Marketplace Era: Law or Technology?

The draft federal law on the platform economy in Russia aims to thoroughly regulate public relations between operators of intermediary digital platforms as well as their partners and users for the sale of goods, performance of work, and rendering of services. In addition to provisions regulating obvious problems for the industry, the bill governs relations between digital platforms that are either already regulated or do not fit into the proposed regulation. This bill is the result of a compromise approach to regulating digital platforms, so its discussion is crucial and should take into account the debates among government officials and businesspeople that took place during the drafting of the bill. A key goal of the bill is to combat the fragmented nature of the legislative regulation of digital platforms and find a balance between the unification of basic principles and industry regulation. One of the shortcomings of contractual relations is the question of whether there are mechanisms in place to protect the rights of consumers, sellers, and owners of pick-up points? How can we achieve a fair change in the conditions for the sale of goods via marketplaces? If a marketplace is only an intermediary, then what should we do with the emerging platform economy and platform employment? How can we ensure that sellers of goods and services have equal access to consumers and is it feasible to use automated decision-making technologies?