Online platforms: new vulnerabilities to be addressed in the European legal framework. Platform to consumer relations

The essay analyses the relationship between online platforms and consumers in the light of European consumer law. The complex digital environment shaped by platforms is characterised by a lack of transparency about the role and status of the parties active in the online marketplace, as well as by the use by online platforms of practices aimed at conditioning consumers' behaviour and limiting or completely excluding their self-determination, giving rise to new forms of vulnerability. In such a context, the regulation of unfair commercial practices can play a central role, provided that some interpretative uncertainties are overcome