New Governance and Digital Platform Companies: The Case of Uber

Network Industries Quarterly, Vol. 20, issue 3, 2018

This issue of the Network Industries Quarterly looks into the major challenges infrastructure regulation is currently facing as a result of technology, indirect network effects, newly emerging network structures, and new actors. The rapidly evolving Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have significantly challenged the traditionally stable landscape of infrastructure services provision. The new data layer over the traditional infrastructure and service layers is transforming network industries: online platforms create new indirect network effects, they allow new service providers to enter the market , and they challenge the central role of traditional infrastructure managers/service providers as entities ensuring the coordination of the sectors. The de- and re-regulation of the different network industries is an on-going process at both the national and global levels. As this process unfolds, ever new phenomena emerge, necessitating a constant reassessment of the content and objectives of regulation. Following the 7th Conference on Regulation of Infrastructures which took place on June 21 and 22, 2018 with a particular focus on the regulatory challenges facing network industries in the transport, telecoms, water and energy sectors, four papers were selected for this publication due to their topical relevance. Frieden examines how Internet ventures operate as intermediaries serving both upstream sources of content and applications, as well as downstream consumers, and considers how governments can respond to the onset of price and quality of service discrimination within the Internet ecosystem. Knieps looks at ICT innovations as the key drivers for a paradigm shift from traditional intramodal transportation markets to intermodal shared mobility markets. He identifies the changing necessities of regulations regarding market entry, public subsidies, and technical regulations, and presents the potentials of pilot projects, as well as the impact of shared mobility on congestion and pollution. Rossotto et al. analyse the existing literature on digital platforms and distinguish four aspects, which policy makers should keep in mind, working on appropriate policy frameworks for digital platforms in emerging markets. These four aspects are: definition of multisided-platforms; emerging business models; technology and behavioral enablers; platform competitive dynamics. Finally, Vanrykel, Ernst and Bourgeois look at the platform Share&Charge, and present its functioning and potential, before assessing the tax treatment of operations involved in the use of the platform.

The Uber case, decided by the Grand Chamber of the CJEU on 20 December 2017, has the potential to reshape the regulation of contracting in the digital economy. More precisely, it specifies the rules applicable to online platforms serving as intermediaries between parties demanding and offering services. The criteria the CJEU uses to reach its conclusion are likely to have repercussions far beyond the area of transportation applications. This Case Note starts by presenting the facts of the case and the legal background of those EU law provisions potentially governing digital intermediaries. It then explores the criteria the Court uses to distinguish Uber from simple intermediation services, followed by a discussion and critique of these criteria. In the last two sections, it maps out the implications of the judgment for the platform economy, and suggests that one decisive impetus of the judgment should be a thorough review of regulations governing the provision of services in the EU.

Growing political distrust in digital platforms has galvanized policy debates about how to best address issues associated with their market power and ad-run business models—including the proliferation of misinformation, privacy threats, and electoral interference. The range of proposed solutions includes growing calls for public-private policy regimes, such as co-regulation. Such proposals envision a role for digital platforms in addressing platform-related problems, whose contours need to be defined. In this article, we examine how platform companies attempt to influence these debates and define this role, focusing on the biggest U.S. digital platform companies: Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. We conduct a content analysis of a sample of 2019 public policy blogs, statements, and testimonies by key personnel at these companies to gain insight into (a) the policy issues they engage, (b) the policy preferences they communicate, and (c) what these communications reveal about their regulatory philosophies and visions of platform governance. The findings shed light on the politics underlying the debates over platform governance and provide insight into what co-regulatory approaches might look like in practice. We call these policy paradigms “frictionless regulation”: light and narrow regulatory oversight confined to baseline standard-setting, receptive to the private sector’s ongoing feedback, and prioritizing fast responsiveness to market needs over the slow and deliberative responsiveness to the public that is typical of democratic governance.

The rise of new software platforms presents regulators and antitrust agencies all over the world with a challenge. Should regulations adapt to the new services of the digital economy? Should competition law change its paradigm in relation to the sharing economy? Despite the growing expansion of these services, in most countries there is still no regulatory framework addressing these problems. Uber is the most emblematic example of this phenomenon. Indeed, it is subject to a large number of ongoing lawsuits merging many issues, ranging from questions pertaining to labour law to problems connected with unfair competition laws. This article first analyses the particular business model adopted by Uber and the antitrust concerns that it could raise. In so doing, the paper pays heed to the approach that antitrust authorities should take towards the complex rivalry between (regulated) incumbents and (unregulated) new entrants. The paper then considers the legal nature of the services provided by Uber, i.e. whether they should be considered as transport services or as services of the information society. Either way, the chosen characterisation will affect the law applied to all digital platforms. The analysis, which adopts a comparative approach, focuses on the European context where national courts are in great turmoil and the CJEU will be issuing a preliminary ruling on the nature of Uber services.

The Political Quarterly, 2017

The ride‐hailing company Uber has achieved extremely rapid global expansion by means of outmanoeuvring governments, regulators and competitors. The rise of the company has been based on a deliberate strategy of acting as a market disruptive innovator through a user friendly technology and making use of the ‘sharing economy’. These attributes are not unique, but are distinctively augmented by a relentless expansionary ambition and an ability to maintain the capacity to innovate. Uber has generated great political controversy, but the challenge for governments and regulators is to embrace the benefits of the disruptive innovator, while adopting an approach that takes into account the full range of impacts. For Uber, the challenge is to maintain its expansionary style as a disruptive innovator, while also redefining on its terms the political and public debate. The case study of London provides important insights into the dynamics of these processes.

Perspectives on Politics

Platform companies disrupt not only the economic sectors they enter, but also the regulatory regimes that govern those sectors. We examine Uber in the United States as a case of regulating this disruption in different arenas: cities, state legislatures, and judicial venues. We find that the politics of Uber regulation does not conform to existing models of regulation. We describe instead a pattern of “disruptive regulation”, characterized by a challenger-incumbent cleavage, in two steps. First, an existing regulatory regime is not deregulated but successfully disregarded by a new entrant. Second, the politics of subsequently regulating the challenger leads to a dual regulatory regime. In the case of Uber, disruptive regulation takes the form of challenger capture, an elite-driven pattern, in which the challenger has largely prevailed. It is further characterized by the surrogate representation of dispersed actors—customers and drivers—who do not have autonomous power and who rely in...

Network Industries Quarterly, 2019

Following the 8th Conference on Regulation of Infrastructures, which took place on June 20 and 21, 2019 with a particular focus on the key challenges of digitalisation for traditional network industries in the transport, telecoms, water and energy sectors, four papers were selected for this publication due to their topical relevance. This special issue opens with an introductory article by the Members of the Scientific Committee of the conference, Professors of the Florence School of Regulation, Montero and Finger, who consider digital platforms as the new network industries and explore the network effects created by platforms. Fuentes et al. looks at the electricity sector, which is navigating major disruptions that are changing the regulatory and business landscape. The paper addresses whether these changes would help or hinder electrification, taking transportation as an example. Becchis, Postiglione and Valerio examine how platforms are giving rise to a series of regulatory challenges, with a focus on their legal definition, labour-related issues in the digital sphere and the role of data between privacy protection and competition. Knieps analyses the problem of division of labour among all-IP broadband network providers, virtual network service providers and platform operators concomitant with the implementation of adequate governance structures. Ducuing analyses the phenomenon, when several (contemplated) data sharing legal regimes appear to essentially recognise and regulate data as an infrastructure, although without explicit reference to this notion. Her research is based on three cases, namely the Open Data and PSI Directive, the on-going institutional discussion on the governance of in-vehicle data and the freshly adopted regulation of data in the Electricity Directive.

RIPS: Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas, 2023

In social science, platform capitalism is becoming more analyzed as digital app-based platforms have revolutionized the global exchange of goods and services, prompting multifaceted challenges within society, economics, and politics. Platform governance emerges as this changing landscape unfolds, illuminating the intricate interplay between national and local regulatory frameworks and the burgeoning power dynamics among diverse stakeholders. This article provides a framework for examining the complex political and governance issues that have surfaced in the gig economy, mainly focused on the proliferation of ride-hailing platforms, such as Uber, also known as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). This article examines the framework of platform governance contributing theoretically by putting into dialogue a literature primarily focused on studying social media with another branch of the platform society in which policy disruption has been evident, such as transportation and urban mobility. The analysis focuses on three fundamental dimensions of political economy: ideas, interests, and institutions. The paper also reviews how these three approaches have operated in recent scholarly literature. Finally, the article underscores the need for future research to address this complexity from a contingent approach to promote a comprehensive understanding of platform regulation.

Routledge, 2022

The digital market has already become a reality in the world. Internet platforms, including so-called gatekeepers, are becoming the primary managers of both the social, scientific, and political content they deliver and the places where providers of goods and services connect with consumers (including other economic operators). Gatekeepers are big tech companies, which within an online platform model develop and manage platforms, as well as rules for business partners and consumers, and acquire data, the most valuable component of the digital market. Due to their size, they have an enormous market advantage over their competitors. Weak contestability and unfair practices in the digital sector are a problem that is more common and more pronounced for some digital services than for others. This applies in particular to widespread and widely used digital services and digital infrastructures, which mostly directly mediate between business users and end users.

CCP Research Bulletin, 2016

Digital platforms are not only seizing growth, but they are also redefining the internet economy in such a way that it upsets the current competition landscape. In this article, we discuss various aspects of digital platforms. By highlighting the traits that differ digital platforms from conventional business models, we aim to show that these new unconventional economies do not clearly appear on the radar of conventional market regulations. Thus, the time has arrived for the introduction of new market regulations for digital platforms.