establishes that digital platforms (covered by its subjective scope27) shall not “treat more favourably, in ranking and related indexing and crawling, services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself than similar services or products of a third party.” In this case, clearly a situation in which, as the latter is in competition with the others, such practices would constitute acts of unfair competition. However, in addition to these situations, the same article requires these platforms to apply “transparent, fair, and non-discriminatory conditions to such classification.” In this case, we believe that the obligation also applies to situations where there is no direct competition between the service provider and the economic agents (professional users) of their digital platforms. In any case, these regulations do not specify the requirements for these classifications, namely the precautions to be taken when they are based on comments from anonymous non-professional users or users whose identity has not been verified. However, we believe that, in addition to principles of fairness and transparency, these regulations also establish an obligation of impartiality in the construction and dissemination of these ratings. This is all the more so given that28 Article 1 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 states that it aims to ensure the “proper functioning of the internal market by laying down rules to ensure that business users of online intermediation services and corporate website users in relation to online search engines are granted appropriate transparency, fairness and effective redress possibilities.” Similarly, Article 1 of the Digital Markets Act stipulates that it aims “to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market by laying down harmonised rules ensuring for all businesses, contestable and fair markets in the digital sector across the Union where gatekeepers are present, to the benefit of business users and end users.” This expressly enshrines the right to the protection of these principles through effective remedies29. 27 Under Article 1(2), the Digital Markets Act “apply to core platform services provided or offered by gatekeepers to business users established in the Union or end users established or located in the Union, irrespective of the place of establishment or residence of the gatekeepers and irrespective of the law otherwise applicable to the provision of service.” We will not explore this concept further in this text. 28 How to satisfy these principles through computational algorithms resistant to discriminatory biases is also discussed in the doctrine of computer sciences, for example in: DAS, Dipenkar. Competitive product ranking algorithms and digital market laws. Comput Manag Sci 22, 9, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10287-025-00537-2. 29 The Digital Markets Act provides for a framework of sanctions within the powers of the European Commission, with fines ranging from 5% to 20% of turnover, as detailed more carefully by MOTA; PINTÃO, O 578 PEDRO DIAS VENÂNCIO
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