Guidelines for building fair platform companies in Europe

16 March 2026 By

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society researchers Alina Kontareva, Stephan Bohn and Sarah Spitz have released a new document titled “Fairness as Strategy. Guidelines for Building Fair Platform Companies in Europe.”

Drawing on three years of research carried out within the INCA Project and a range of academic studies, the authors offer recommendations for managers of platform companies on implementing practices that consider the needs and perspectives of users, workers and other businesses.

The publication introduces fairness as a guiding principle for platform companies in Europe and contributes to the broader debate on the future of the European platform economy. The authors suggest that managers of platform companies can use it as a basis for internal discussions, to reflect on their own business models and to sharpen their own understanding of fairness. This document further informs the regulatory debate and supports the ongoing development of the European Digital Fairness Act (DFA).

The document illustrates fair platform practices in four key areas: data collection, decision-making, employment conditions and remuneration, and economic practices. In each of these key areas, they identify problematic practices found in their research and they highlight alternative or fairer approaches that companies can adopt. The guide also includes concrete examples of fair platform practices.

Overall, the authors hope that the publication will empower companies to contribute to a better European platform economy.

The guide can be consulted and downloaded here or via the Zenodo repository.