// The EU Commission has launched a new platform-to-business (P2B) law
// The law requires online giants such as Google and Amazon to treat minor rivals and users fairly
// Rules include a blacklist of unjust trading practices, and require companies to set up an internal system to manage complaints
The European Commission has launched a new platform-to-business (P2B) law which means online giants such as Google and Amazon will have to treat minor rivals and users fairly.
Google and Amazon will have to tell companies how they rank products on their platforms while Facebook and other tech firms will have to be candid about their terms and conditions under new EU rules which were approved on Wednesday.
The rules include a blacklist of unjust trading practices, and require companies to set up an internal system to manage complaints.
The law, which was first proposed in April last year, will have to be rubber stamped by the European Council in the coming months before they take effect.
It will cover 7000 online companies, such as ecommerce market places, app stores, social media and price comparison tools.
Companies that will be affected by the rules include Google’s three products Play, Shopping and Search, Apple’s App Store, Microsoft’s Store and Bing, Amazon Marketplace, Ebay, Facebook’s Instagram, Skyscanner, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo.
“As the first-ever regulation in the world that addresses the challenges of business relations within the online platform economy, it is an important milestone of the Digital Single Market and lays the ground for future developments,” the commission’s digital chief Andrus Ansip said.
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