Platform Economy: the Essence and Relationship with Allied Categories
Abstract
The article based on etymological and legal analysis in light of the established doctrinal stance, explores the platform economy as a category to reveal its essence in comparison with other related categories (digital economy, electronic (online) trade, platform law, platform employment). The originality of the study is that it was conducted in connection with the recently passed Federal Law of 31 July 2025 “On Specific Aspects of Platform Economy Regulation in Russia”. The article purports to demonstrate a multitude of theoretical and legislative interpretations revealing the specifics of digital and/or platform-based economic operations. The research included analysis of the acting law and specific legal drafts; formulation of proposals to improve the legislation, with formal logic, linguistic technical, formal legal, and systemic methods being used. The research demonstrates that legal instruments do not uniformly regulate various digital/platform relationships between a wide range of economic agents concluding on the need to harmonize the digital and platform economy-related concepts in individual regulations of varying scope in terms of parties and other categories. In view of this problem, proposals were made to improve the law from the perspective of legal form.
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