Fair competition in the ranking of commercial establishments on digital platforms Pedro Dias Venâncio1 Introduction. – I. Unfair competition. – II. Risks of digital markets to fair competition. – III. The classification of commercial establishments on digital platforms. – IV. Ranking of commercial establishments on digital platforms based on comments left by users. – Conclusions and prospects. – Bibliography. In an economic open market model, acts of competition between economic agents — understood as those acts intended to obtain or develop their own clientele to the detriment of other agents’ clientele (actual or potential) — are, in principle, lawful and beneficial to the construction of the aforementioned open market. Liberal economies tend to protect the proper functioning of competition by safeguarding and even promoting private economic initiative; by limiting dominant or monopolistic market positions; by protecting consumer rights; and by repressing acts contrary to fair competition. The transition to a digitalized market, accessible to economic agents and consumers on open online platforms, naturally raises new challenges for the protection of fair competition. In this article, we will look in particular at the practice of rating commercial establishments on digital platforms based on comments left by users of those platforms, how this practice may affect free competition, and to what extent mechanisms prohibiting acts of unfair competition can be effective in protecting the interests of economic agents. Keywords: e-commerce, commercial establishments, rating, fair competition. DOI 10.60559/gl43 1 University of Minho. pdvenancio@direito.uminho.pt.
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