The European Commission held a series of stakeholder engagement events as part of its fact-finding exercise on platforms' business-to-business (P2B) trading practices.
Three workshops on the following respective topics:
- data access, (re-)use & portability,
- legal terms & conditions
- algorithms, ranking & transparency
have so far taken place (on 19 October 2016, 14 November 2016 and 16 March 2017).
The high level reports of these workshops (data, T&Cs, algorithms) summarise the discussions and set out in more detail the various practices experienced by the business users.
Then on 7 September 2017, a focus group with businesses active on internet platforms explored the potential solutions to the problems arising in relations between platforms and businesses. See its report.
The workshops were held subject to the Chatham House rule.
The in-depth discussions from the workshops are complemented by more comprehensive studies and surveys. As already announced in last year's Communication on Online Platforms, the Commission will present its preliminary findings still this year.