B0080 - DIRITTO DELLE PIATTAFORME DIGITALI

Learning outcomes

The aim of the course is to illustrate the main legal issues related to the conduct of administrative and economic activities on the internet.
By the end of the course, students will have acquired both theoretical and practical tools to understand the legal framework—also with regard to the relationship between national and supranational legal systems—applicable to digital platforms.
They will be familiar with certain legal aspects of cybersecurity and will be able to carry out a preliminary assessment of whether an IT project involving the use of digital platforms complies with current regulations.

Course contents

The course focuses on contract law with and on digital platforms.

It is structured in a general part, concerning the fundamentals of the law of obligations and contracts (Section 1), and two specialized parts: one dedicated to consumer law, addressing both unfair terms in standard-form contracts between the platform and the user, as well as transparency obligations under consumer law (Section 2); and another part focusing on European regulations concerning digital platforms aimed at protecting users (both consumers and professionals) operating online (Section 3).

1. Fundamentals of the Law of Obligations and Contracts:

• The concept of contract and its evolution in the digital environment;
• The essential elements of a contract:
• a) Agreement between the parties (with a focus on public offers and acceptance of platform terms of use);
• b) The cause of the contract in the digital environment (focusing on consideration and gratuitousness in contracts with and on platforms: contracts involving payment; contracts not involving payment, where personal data and UGCs serve as counter-performance);
• c) The subject matter and possible classifications of contracts in digital markets (focus on the notions of "digital service" and "underlying service"; and on contracts concerning the provision of an "underlying service": whether provided by a platform user or the platform itself);
• d) The form of online contracts; contract pathology: termination for breach and unilateral withdrawal in contracts with platforms (focus on account deactivation by the platform provider); platform liability: transparency, information obligations, and product liability;
• A new generation of contracts in digital markets: smart contracts.

2. Consumer Contract Law in the Digital Environment:

• The concept of consumer in the digital market (with a focus on the prosumer figure);
• Consumer contracts (with a focus on unfair terms, consumer rights, and unfair commercial practices, also in light of Directive 2161/2019);
• Contracts for the supply of digital content and services (with a focus on Directive 770/2019 and references to Directive 790/2019 on digital copyright, as well as their transposition into Italian law);
• Contracts for the online sale of goods and services; contracts concerning social media and collections of creative content; sharing economy contracts;
• Contracts involving business users of online intermediation services and platform liability for non-performance in business-to-business contracts (with a focus on Directive 1150/2019);
• Introduction to the use of AI in detecting unfair terms in adhesion contracts; instructor-guided analysis – also using AI tools (such as Claudette) – of commonly used online platform adhesion contracts; critical assessment of the AI's outputs in light of the knowledge acquired in EU contract law and consumer protection.

3. New Regulations on Digital Platforms and Their Impact on Contract Law:

• Platform obligations in the e-commerce sector and consumer protection (with a focus on the Digital Services Package and references to the DMA and AIA);
• Introduction to alternative dispute resolution tools for the protection of consumer and user rights;
• Introduction to personal data protection in standard-form online contracts (with a focus on the innovations introduced by GDPR Regulation No. 679/2016).

Readings/Bibliography

The course syllabus (which includes regulations, assigned readings, a selection of term of services of popular online platform, which will be examined during the course, and further reading material) will be available on the dedicated webpage at virtuale.unibo.it.

Students are required to use the mandatory textbook below:

A. QUARTA – G. SMORTO, Diritto privato dei mercati digitali, Le Monnier Università, 2024.

For further references – as will be specified by the lecturer during the course – students may also refer to:

P. BENANTI, Human in the loop. Decisioni umane e intelligenze artificiali, Mondadori Università, 2022.

M. MAUGERI, Smart Contracts e disciplina dei contratti, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2021

Students are highly recommended to consult the civil code, the consumer law code and related laws in the following edition:

G. PERLINGIERI – M. ANGELONE, Codice Civile con Costituzione, Trattati UE e TFUE, leggi complementari e codici di settore, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 2021

Teaching methods

The course is in Italian language and applies several teaching methods: face-to-face lectures, including special lectures delivered by experts on specific topics; students’ working groups and interactive lessons in which students present the analysis done by each working group; drafting of checklists which measure the compliance to EU law of the platforms’ terms of service analysed by the working groups (learning by doing).

Assessment methods

Learning will be assessed:

i) during the classes dedicated to the presentation of the analysis results carried out by each working group on the assigned contractual regulations;

ii) by taking into account, when assigning the final grade, any student participation in the optional workshops on online personal data protection (Euclide Workshop on Online Data Protection – 10 hours) and dispute resolution in the digital environment (Euclide Workshop on ADR – 10 hours);

iii) at the end of the course through a written multiple-choice test.

The written test will consist of 31 questions. One point will be awarded for each correct answer. There are no penalties for incorrect or unanswered questions (0 points). The maximum score, if all answers are correct, is therefore 30/30 with honors.

The test is considered passed with a minimum score of 18/30.

A maximum time of 40 minutes will be allowed for the test.

Any additional points earned through group work in class may be added to the test score only if the exam is taken during the exam session immediately following the end of the course.

If the written test at the end of the course is passed, students may decline the grade only once.

Teaching tools

In addition to the teaching materials contained in the course syllabus and the textbook, the lecturer will make use of: PowerPoint slides; online legal databases and journals; and open-source web tools that employ Artificial Intelligence.

Office hours

See the website of Chiara Alvisi