Online platform providers in the sharing economy: Emergence of new service suppliers?

The ‘sharing economy’ has grown dramatically with the development of online platforms, challenging both domestic and international economic structure and related policies. While the issue of governance surrounding the online platform industry has become an important issue, thereby necessitating more discussion, even in the WTO, there remains the structural incompatibility of online platform providers with the current international trade regime and the continuing debate regarding how to classify and categorize platform services and their suppliers. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the status of online platform providers under the international trade regime, focusing on the matters of classification and the likeness of online platform providers based on the norms of trade in services. The article further examines the next question of the applicability of existing international trade norms, including WTO and free trade agreements together with the overview of newly introduced trade norms for online platform providers. Although there are still unresolved questions regarding various kinds of online platforms, the present work urges a continuous effort into defining applicable norms for the sharing economy within the established trade regulatory framework for legal certainty and predictability.