Observatory on the Online Platform Economy
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The Observatory aims to contribute to an environment of fair and trusted cooperation between business users and online platforms. For this purpose, we collect information and analyse specific issues that are encountered by business users in their dealings with online platforms, especially issues that are unresolved or recurring. In parallel, we seek to hear from the platforms regarding the challenges they face in their relationship with business users.

Please note this is not a complaint handling mechanism

Your submission will not be regarded as part of any dispute settlement mechanism. The European Commission is not obliged to take any direct action in response to this submission. No liability is attached to the European Commission, the Observatory team, expert group, study team or others as a result of information provided in this form.

Why participate?

The information you share is extremely valuable and will help us understand current trends and emerging issues in the online platform economy. The responses you provide in the form below will be made available to the study team, who will analyse and summarise the issues reported. This analysis will feed into the analytical papers and reports produced by the study team and the expert group. All of your answers will remain anonymous and will never be associated with your name.

Please feel free to fill in the form using your own language.

If you have any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact us.

I listed some items which I believed were still in compliance but the platform decided I had broken their rules again and closed all my shops. I appealed but the appeal process was a joke and merely rubber stamped the decision.
We may remove all listings that violate our policies. If the goods sold infringe copyright and other company policies, you have to suspend asap; otherwise you get complaints from buyers and other sellers.
Sometimes support is slow and late. After contacting support, I received a very generic response and the follow up letter was not answered.
Although some businesses complain that the redress mechanisms are sometimes too slow, the platforms themselves usually want for issues to be resolved as soon as possible but understanding the nature of issue well takes time.
The platform changes rules without warning or notice – sellers suddenly and just by chance realise there is a new rule.
When we change or tweak something on our website then complaints are likely from sellers and buyers, before they adapt to changes!
I get a little less data than what is necessary.
We provide vast amounts of data but in fact, not all data is used by the sellers. There’s also a lack of understanding from the business user perspective what data is legally allowed to be shared.
The amount of data that the platform offers for some sellers is not enough or maybe the data is enough only it requires a little bit of effort and time to draw insights.
We are trying to give the sellers the data, which we consider to be useful for sellers to be better and it requires a lot of investment from the platforms to aggregate the data for the business users.