European Commission Launches Public Consultation on the Role of Online Platforms

The European Commission recently launched a public debate with a consultation on platforms, online intermediaries, data, cloud computing and the collaborative economy.

The views expressed and information gathered will help the Commission assess the need for, or prepare initiatives as part of the Internal Market Strategy for Goods and Services.

The consultation will look at the economic role of online platforms, which include search engines, social media, video-sharing websites, app stores, etc. It will also explore the liability of intermediaries as regards illegal content hosted online and how to improve the free flow of data in the EU and to build a European Cloud. It will look as well into the possibilities and potential issues raised by the rise of the collaborative economy.

The Commission wants to hear from citizens, manufacturers, retailers (especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), right holders, data and cloud service providers and users, as well as all those involved in the collaborative economy.

The consultation will run until late December 2015 (for a 12-week period starting on the date on when the consultation text is published in all official languages).

This public consultation will be available in Greek and another 22 official EU languages in the second week of October. In the meantime, those who wish to contribute to the public consultation, may do it in any official EU language in the English questionnaire.

For further information, press here.