Treasury has released a consultation paper on regulatory reforms in Australia to implement recommendations for competition and consumer issues by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s inquiry into Digital Platform Services.

The ACCC inquiry considers competition in markets for the supply of digital platform services, practices of suppliers of digital platform services which may result in harm and how innovation and technology change may affect the nature and degree of market power and characteristics of digital platform services. The final report is due in 2025.

Digital platform services covered by the Inquiry include internet search engine services, social media services, online private messaging services, digital content aggregation platform services, media referral services and electronic marketplace services. The Inquiry also covers digital advertising services supplied by digital platform service providers and the data practices of both digital platform service providers and data brokers.

The ACCC’s fifth report recommends:
1. Economy-wide consumer measures, including a prohibition against unfair trading practices and
unfair contract terms.
2. Consumer measures specific to digital platforms, including mandating internal and external dispute
resolution processes and obligations on platforms to prevent and remove scams, harmful apps and
fake reviews.
3. A new competition framework which would subject ‘designated’ digital platforms to mandatory
codes applying to the services they provide.
4. Targeted competition obligations for designated digital platforms to be included in the proposed
new framework and codes, to address harms such as anti-competitive self-preferencing.

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