22 Amendments of Sergio GUTIÉRREZ PRIETO related to 2018/0112(COD)
Amendment 60 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 1
Recital 1
(1) Online intermediation services are key enablers of entrepreneurship, trade and innovation, which can also improve. New technologies and their evolution have created new opportunities and business models, alternative to the traditional ones, boosting consumer welfare and which are increasingly used by both the private and public sectors. They offer access to new markets and commercial opportunities allowing undertakings to exploit the benefits of the internal market. They also allow consumers in the Union to exploit those benefits, in particular by increasing their choice of goods and services offered online. Although they also create uncertainty in social and economic agents about their fiscal and labour responsibilities before the consumer, due to certain grey areas in legislation that we must clarify.
Amendment 64 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 2
Recital 2
(2) Online intermediation services can be crucial for the commercial success of undertakings who use such services to reach consumers. TConsidering the new economic context and digitalization of all facets of economy and society, the growing intermediation of transactions through online intermediation services, fuelled by strong data-driven indirect network effects, lead to an increased dependence of such business users, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, on those services in order for them to reach consumers. Given that increasing dependence, the providers of those services often have superior bargaining power, which enables them to effectively behave unilaterally in a way that can be unfair and that can be harmful to the legitimate interests of their businesses users and, indirectly, also of consumers in the Union.
Amendment 67 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 3
Recital 3
(3) Similarly, online search engines can be important sources of Internet traffic for undertakings which offer goods or services to consumers through websites and can therefore significantly affect the commercial success of such corporate website users offering their goods or services online in the internal market. In this regard, the ranking of websites by providers of online search engines, including of those websites through which corporate website users offer their goods and services to consumers, has an important impact on consumer choice and the commercial success of those corporate website users. Even in the absence of a contractual relationship with corporate website users, providers of online search engines can therefore effectively behave unilaterally in a way that can be unfair and that can be harmful to the legitimate interests of corporate website users and, indirectly, also of consumers in the Union. Thus, it is fundamental that companies behave in a responsible manner, bearing in mind sustainability and societal interests.
Amendment 81 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 5
Recital 5
(5) Online intermediation services and online search engines, as well as the commercial transactions facilitated by those services, have an intrinsic cross- border potential and are of particular importance for the proper functioning of the Union’s internal market in today’s economy. The potentially unfair and harmful trading practices of certain providers of those services in respect of business users and corporate website users hamper the full realisation of that potential and negatively affect the proper functioning of the internal market. In addition, the full realisation of that potential is hampered, and the proper functioning of the internal market is negatively affected, by diverging laws of certain Member States which, with a varying degree of effectiveness, regulate those services, while other Member States are considering adopting such laws.
Amendment 85 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6
Recital 6
(6) A uniform and targeted set of mandatory rules should therefore be established at Union level to ensure a fair, predictable, sustainable and trusted online business environment within the internal market by ensuring, in particular, that the business users of online intermediation services are afforded appropriate transparency as well as effective redress possibilities throughout the Union. Also, we must ensure that platforms give fair treatment to business users with whom they compete directly. Those rules should also provide for appropriate transparency as regards the ranking of corporate website users in the search results generated by online search engines. At the same, those rules should be such as to safeguard the important innovation potential of the wider online platform economy.
Amendment 88 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6 a (new)
Recital 6 a (new)
Amendment 137 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 14
Recital 14
(14) Ensuring transparency and equity in the general terms and conditions can be essential to promoting sustainable business relationships and to preventing unfair behaviour to the detriment of business users. Providers of online intermediation services should therefore also ensure that the terms and conditions are easily available at all stages of the contractual relationship, including to prospective business users at the pre-contractual phase, and that any modifications to those terms are notified to business users within a set notice period which is reasonable and proportionate in light of the specific circumstances and which is at least 15 days. That notice period should not apply where, and to the extent that, it is waived in an unambiguous manner by the business user concerned or where, and to the extent that, the need to implement the modification without respecting the notice period stems from a legal obligation incumbent on the service provider under Union or national law.
Amendment 244 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 1 – point 1
Article 2 – paragraph 1 – point 1
(1) ‘business user’ means any natural or legal person which through online intermediation services offers goods or services to consumers for purposes relating to its trade, business, craft or profession, including individuals working or providing services by personally providing work via online intermediation services;
Amendment 294 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 3 – paragraph 1 – point a
Article 3 – paragraph 1 – point a
(a) are drafted in clear and unambiguous language, are objective and non-discriminatory;
Amendment 307 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 3 – paragraph 1 – point c
Article 3 – paragraph 1 – point c
(c) set out the objective grounds for decisions to suspend or terminate, terminate or impose any other kind of sanction upon, in whole or in part, the provision of their online intermediation services to business users.
Amendment 316 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 3 – paragraph 2 a (new)
Article 3 – paragraph 2 a (new)
Amendment 358 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 4 – paragraph 1
Article 4 – paragraph 1
1. Where a provider of online intermediation services decides to suspend or, terminate, or restrict in whole or in part, the provision of its online intermediation services to a given business user, it shall provide the business user or users concerned, without undue delay, with a statement of reasons for that decision.
Amendment 391 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 5 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 1
Article 5 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 1
Providers of online intermediation services shall set out in their terms and conditions the main parameters determining ranking and the reasons for the relative importance of those main parameters as opposed to other parameters. However, it will avoid favouring the platforms own products over those of third parties.
Amendment 415 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 5 – paragraph 2 a (new)
Article 5 – paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Individual parameters determining ranking shall be applied in a non- discriminatory manner.
Amendment 416 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 5 – paragraph 2 b (new)
Article 5 – paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. Where those main parameters include the possibility to influence ranking against any direct or indirect remuneration paid by corporate website users to the provider of online search engine concerned, that provider of online search engine shall also include in its terms and conditions a description of those possibilities and of the effects of such remuneration on ranking. In any case, providers of online search engines shall not influence ranking of search results against any direct or indirect remuneration paid by corporate website users, unless they mark search results where remuneration was paid in a clearly identifiable manner.
Amendment 430 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 5 – paragraph 4
Article 5 – paragraph 4
4. Providers of online intermediation services and providers of online search engines shall, when complying with the requirements of this Article, not be required to disclose any trade secrets as defined in Article 2(1) of Directive (EU) 2016/943. With the objective of preventing the disclosure of relevant information to the company´s competition.
Amendment 449 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 6 – paragraph 1
Article 6 – paragraph 1
1. Providers of online intermediation services shall include in their terms and conditions a description of any differentiated treatment which they give, or may give, in relation to, on the one hand, goods or services offered to consumers through those online intermediation services by either that provider itself or any business users which that provider controls and, on the other hand, other business users. Likewise, the risk of unfair behaviour will be addressed when a platform, in a position of superiority, provides a service that competes directly with that of the business user.
Amendment 532 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 8 – paragraph 1
Article 8 – paragraph 1
1. Where, in the provision of their services, pProviders of online intermediation services shall not restrict the ability of business users to offer the same goods and services to consumers under different conditions through other means than through those services, they shall include grounds for that restriction in their terms and conditions and make those grounds easily available to the public. Those grounds shall include the main economic, commercial or legal considerations for those restrictions.
Amendment 552 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 9 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 1
Article 9 – paragraph 1 – subparagraph 1
Providers of online intermediation services shall provide for an internal system for handling, in a transparent manner, the complaints of business users.
Amendment 661 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 12 – paragraph 1 a (new)
Article 12 – paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Member States shall ensure that their relevant public bodies or other authorities set up a registry of unlawful acts which have been subject to injunction orders before national courts in order to provide a basis for best practice and information to other Member State public bodies or other authorities.
Amendment 699 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 13 – paragraph 1
Article 13 – paragraph 1
1. The Commission shall encourage and monitor the drawing up of codes of conduct by providers of online intermediation services and by organisations and associations representing them, including the consultation and involvement of SME organisations and platform workers' representatives regarding the content of such codes, intended to contribute to the proper application of this Regulation, taking account of the specific features of the various sectors in which online intermediation services are provided, as well as of the specific characteristics of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Amendment 720 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 14 – paragraph 3
Article 14 – paragraph 3
3. Member States shall provide any relevant information that the Commission may require for the purposes of drawing up the report referred to in paragraph 1. It must be the European Commission and the Member States and their competent authorities that monitor and ensure compliance with the regulation, in addition to the rules of the Member States in case the European regulation is not effective. The fragmentation of the digital single market is a problem that can be solved through regulation at a European level.