for information duties.134 There is a large number of various rules dealing with information duties of the participants on the online market who have different goals depending on whether they are business users or consumers. At the same time, there is no substantial regulation of multiparty contractual relations existing on online marketplaces between consumers, business or private service providers and providers of online marketplaces.135 In particular, there are no expressly and substantially provided positive obligations of online marketplaces in relation to their users in the cases of violation of information duties to achieve a harmonised protection of users of online marketplaces at the level of the Union, and indirectly also a higher level of transparency of the digital market.136 Indeed, even within the framework of the EU rules providing for the obligations regarding transparent, clear and comprehensible information that must be directly and easily accessible, problems may arise in practice because of unclear criteria for the assessment of transparency.137 Problems may also arise when assessing whether the provider of online marketplaces has actually provided all general information, which parameters are considered to be most important, how is the relative importance of parameters determined and how is the accessibility of information assessed. Special problems may be caused by particular types of products and services offered via marketplaces, because of which the content of information, the method of presenting parameters and reviews are often completely different. Finally, some problems may also arise in connection with the protection of users of online markeplaces due to decentralised public or private enforcement of measures in the case of infringement of EU rules on information duties provided for in various EU directives and regulations. Modernisation of information requirements brought about by the Omnibus Directive is an important but only the first step towards proper consumer protection on the digital market, including the tourism services market. There are still many challenges before the European legislator involving efficient protection of consumers and all other participants on online marketplaces. We expect that in the future, the concept of information duties will remain one of the most important aspects of ensuring full transparency of the online market. However, information duties require a systematic and consistent codification. It would be very useful to consider whether, for particular sectors of the online market, special rules on information duties ought to be developed, adjusted to the specificities of these sectors (depending on the importance of particular pieces of information for the selection of products and services, as well as for the protection of online market users). For example, the ranking and the reviews play a more important role in the selection of tourism services than in some other sectors. Therefore, it would be useful to lay down some rules on providing detailed information about the ranking parameters and the way of posting reviews on the offered tourism services. Similarly, the information on a particular tourism sector should be adjusted to the circumstance that services on the online market are often offered by private persons not having the capacity of traders. Currently, the rules on information duties of providers of online marketplaces are the only European instrument to ensure a harmonised provision of information for consumers in peer-to-peer tourism services. However, the biggest challenge for the future development of all sectors of the digital market will be a substantial regulation of the legal relations between all the parties on marketplaces, as well as of remedies and private crossborder enforcements. As for now, the European legislator tries to solve the problems arising in the functioning of the digital market by extending the traditional legal instruments that already exist on the offline market (information duties, unfair contract terms, the right of withdrawal, unfair commercial practices, collective remedies, and the like). Indeed, it is only the question of time when, for the sake of legal security of all the participants on the digital market, it will be necessary to make a significant turn and to carry out a systematic and consistent harmonisation of the substantial rules governing the legal relations on the digital market. 134 See Cauffman, C., Goanta, C. (2021) pp. 760, 761. There is a warning note in literature that the problem of inconsistency of the rules on platform responsibilities regarding transparency is not solved by the Digital Single Act whose adoption is proposed within the Digital Services Act Package. See ibid, pp. 761-763. 135See Loos (2020), p. 422 Narciso, M. (2022a) pp. 360, 363; Iamiceli, P. (2019), pp.415, 419. 136 Neither the proposed Digital Services Act, nor the Directive on Electronic Commerce provide for the positive liability of online intermediaries for the third party content. The Digital Services Act contains only the rules on exemption from liability which should replace the existing rules referred to in Arts 12-15, Directive on Electronic Commerce and are harmonised with the case law of the CJEU. See Arts 3-7, Digital Single Act. See Cauffman, C., Goanta, C. (2021), pp. 763-767; Busch, Ch., Mak, V. (2021) pp. 110,112; Duivenvoorde, B. (2022), pp. 5052. 137 See Hiwatashi Dos Santos, G. (2020), p. 88.
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