INTRODUCTION2 An open (or competitive) market presupposes the existence of “rules of free economic initiative, the existence of a plurality of economic agents, and a consumer public with freedom of choice.”3, in which different economic agents compete for consumer preference. This economic activity model is based on the belief that competition promotes innovation and economic development, benefits business synergies, and allows consumers freedom of choice. In addition to promoting economic activity, it also enhances wealth creation for the community and the State4. In this 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 market5. In view of these benefits, the legal systems of countries with 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. This last idea highlights that this model also imposes a duty on economic agents to act fairly, both among competitors and towards consumers. 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. The central question is 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 harmed by these practices. 2 All quotations were translated by us from the original works. 3 GONÇALVES, Luís Couto, Manual de Direito Industrial, 10.a Edição. Coimbra: Almedina, 2023, p. 409. 4 GOMES, José Caramelo; VILELA, Noémia Bessa, Concorrência, in: Dicionário dos Valores e Cidadania Europeia, 1.a. [s.l.]: Petrony, 2025, p. 146–150. 5 In this sense, Adelaide Menezes Leitão tells us that the act of competition “is lawful, insofar as the legal system allows competition, since we are in the realm of private law, where, outside the scope of the prohibition of acts of unfair competition, it is permitted.”, LEITÃO, Adelaide Menezes, Estudo de Direito Privado sobre a Cláusula Geral de Concorrência Desleal, Coimbra: Almedina, 2000, p. 44. 570 PEDRO DIAS VENÂNCIO
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