The Platform Economy

Digital ecosystems formed on the basis of digital platforms are significantly transforming modern reality. Today it is difficult to imagine life without LinkedIn, Facebook, or Amazon. The total income generated by them is estimated at trillions of dollars. Digital platforms are the main driving force of the digital economy. The impact and growth of digital platforms on social and economic processes today is difficult to overestimate. The pandemic has further deepened their influence on society, as almost all social communication and economic activity has moved to online format on digital platforms. The growth of the share of digital platforms in various segments of the economy was so rapid that regulators around the world were not ready for such large-scale transformations. All this has caused a number of crisis phenomena, when IT giants have grown into an independent branch of “power”, which has direct access to the personal and financial data of millions of citizens, and moreover,have the opportunity to directly influence them. This monograph is a unique publication in which, for the first time, a large-scale and sufficiently deep team of experts and scientists from various countries of the world studied in detail the multidimensional phenomenon of the “platform economy” and the measures taken by states to regulate these processes. The book will be interesting to a wide range of readers interested in the problems of the development of digital platforms and the developing branch of law and science – the law of digital platforms.