(3) Consumers have embraced the use of online_intermediation_services.
A competitive, fair, and transparent online ecosystem where companies behave responsibly is also essential for consumer welfare.
Ensuring the transparency of, and trust in, the online platform economy in business-to-business relations could also indirectly help to improve consumer trust in the online platform economy.
Direct impacts of the development of the online platform economy on consumers are, however, addressed by other Union law, especially the consumer acquis.
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(4) 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, in effect, 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.
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(22) A provider of online_intermediation_services can have legitimate reasons to decide to restrict, suspend or terminate the provision of its services to a given business_user, including by delisting individual goods or services of a given business_user or effectively removing search results.
Short of being suspended, providers of online_intermediation_services can also restrict individual listings of business_users; for example, through their demotion or by negatively affecting a business_user’s appearance (‘dimming’) which can include lowering its ranking.
However, given that such decisions can significantly affect the interests of the business_user concerned, they should be provided, prior to or at the time of the restriction or suspension taking effect, with a statement of reasons for that decision on a durable_medium.
To minimise the negative impact of such decisions on business_users, providers of online_intermediation_services should also allow an opportunity to clarify the facts that led to that decision in the framework of the internal complaint-handling process, which will help the business_user, where this is possible, to re-establish compliance.
In addition, where the provider of online_intermediation_services revokes the decision to restrict, suspend or terminate, for example because the decision was made in error or the infringement of terms_and_conditions that led to this decision was not committed in bad faith and has been remedied in a satisfactory manner, the provider should reinstate the business_user concerned without undue delay, including providing the business_user with any access to personal or other data, or both, available prior to the decision.
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(23) The termination of the whole of the online_intermediation_services and the related deletion of data provided for the use of, or generated through, the provision of online_intermediation_services represent a loss of essential information which could have a significant impact on business_users and could also impair their ability to properly exercise other rights granted to them by this Regulation.
Therefore, the provider of online_intermediation_services should provide the business_user concerned with a statement of reasons on a durable_medium, at least 30 days before the termination of the provision of the whole of its online_intermediation_services enters into effect.
However, in cases where a legal or regulatory obligation requires a provider of online_intermediation_services to terminate the provision of the whole of its online_intermediation_services to a given business_user, this notice period should not apply.
Equally, the notice period of 30 days should not apply where a provider of online_intermediation_services invokes rights of termination under national law in compliance with Union law which allow immediate termination where, taking into account all the circumstances of the specific case and weighing the interests of both parties, it cannot reasonably be expected to continue the contractual relationship until the agreed end or until the expiry of a notice period.
Finally, the notice period of 30 days should not apply where a provider of online_intermediation_services can demonstrate a repeated infringement of terms_and_conditions.
The various exceptions to the 30-day notice period can in particular arise in connection with illicit or inappropriate content, the safety of a good or service, counterfeiting, fraud, malware, spam, data breaches, other cybersecurity risks or suitability of the good or service to minors.
In order to ensure proportionality, providers of online_intermediation_services should, where reasonable and technically feasible, delist only individual goods or services of a business_user.
Termination of the whole of the online_intermediation_services constitutes the most severe measure.
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(24) The ranking of goods and services by the providers of online_intermediation_services has an important impact on consumer choice and, consequently, on the commercial success of the business_users offering those goods and services to consumers.
Ranking refers to the relative prominence of the offers of business_users or relevance given to search results as presented, organised or communicated by providers of online_intermediation_services or by providers of online_search_engines, resulting from the use of algorithmic sequencing, rating or review mechanisms, visual highlights, or other saliency tools, or combinations thereof.
Predictability entails that providers of online_intermediation_services determine ranking in a non-arbitrary manner.
Providers should therefore outline the main parameters determining ranking beforehand, in order to improve predictability for business_users, to allow them to better understand the functioning of the ranking mechanism and to enable them to compare the ranking practices of various providers.
The specific design of this transparency obligation is important for business_users as it implies the identification of a limited set of parameters that are most relevant out of a possibly much larger number of parameters that have some impact on ranking.
This reasoned description should help business_users to improve the presentation of their goods and services, or some inherent characteristics of those goods or services.
The notion of main parameter should be understood to refer to any general criteria, processes, specific signals incorporated into algorithms or other adjustment or demotion mechanisms used in connection with the ranking.
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(25) The description of the main parameters determining ranking should also include an explanation of any possibility for business_users to actively influence ranking against remuneration, as well as an explanation of the relative effects thereof.
Remuneration could, in this respect, refer to payments made with the main or sole aim to improve ranking, as well as indirect remuneration in the form of the acceptance by a business_user of additional obligations of any kind which may have this as its practical effect, such as the use of services that are ancillary or of any premium features.
The content of the description, including the number and type of main parameters, can accordingly vary strongly depending on the specific online_intermediation_services, but should provide business_users with an adequate understanding of how the ranking mechanism takes account of the characteristics of the actual goods or services offered by the business_user, and their relevance to the consumers of the specific online_intermediation_services.
The indicators used for measuring the quality of goods or services of business_users, the use of editors and their ability to influence the ranking of those goods or services, the amplitude of the impact of remuneration on ranking as well as elements that do not or only remotely relate to the good or service itself, such as presentational features of the online offer, could be examples of main parameters that, when included in a general description of the ranking mechanism in plain and intelligible language, should assist business_users in obtaining the required adequate understanding of its functioning.
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(26) Similarly, the ranking of websites by the providers of online_search_engines, notably of those websites through which undertakings offer goods and services to consumers, has an important impact on consumer choice and the commercial success of corporate_website_users.
Providers of online_search_engines should therefore provide a description of the main parameters determining the ranking of all indexed websites and the relative importance of those main parameters as opposed to other parameters, including those of corporate_website_users as well as other websites.
In addition to the characteristics of the goods and services and their relevance for consumers, this description should in the case of online_search_engines also allow corporate_website_users to obtain an adequate understanding of whether, and if so how and to what extent, certain design characteristics of the website used, such as their optimisation for display on mobile telecommunications devices, is taken into account.
It should also include an explanation of any possibility for corporate_website_users to actively influence ranking against remuneration, as well as an explanation of the relative effects thereof.
In the absence of a contractual relationship between providers of online_search_engines and corporate_website_users, that description should be available to the public in an obvious and easily accessible location on the relevant online_search_engine.
Areas of websites that require users to log in or register should not be understood as easily and publicly available in this sense.
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