ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how digital entrepreneurship in the sharing economy is regulated in the European Union. It examines, from a legal perspective, the regulatory framework or ‘governance’ of the sharing economy platform ‘per se’ and the position of service providers sharing goods and services via the platform. Using the traditional legal method, it identifies what rules are applicable, the extent to which such rules are mandatory and what may be left to contractual negotiation between the parties. The focus is on key EU e-commerce legal instruments such as the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC and the Platform-to-Business Regulation 2019/1150, as well as the recent Uber and Airbnb judgements by the Court of Justice of the EU. The analysis shows that there is no ‘ad hoc’ legislation that regulates all aspects of the sharing economy. Instead, a complex meshwork of rules provides both constraints and opportunities to digital entrepreneurs. As several of these e-commerce rules only apply to the extent that a platform can be classified as an information society service provider, the EU may end up with two different regulatory approaches for sharing economy platforms, a matter which ought to be addressed in its digital strategy for Europe.
