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Platform Council
Call for Evidence: Platform Council Agenda Item PL-001
Note RC/XX/2026/1
Author and signatory: Robert Nikic, Advisory Council Chair of Reseated Councils
Subject: Call for evidence on proposed Platform Council agenda item PL-001
1. Purpose of this call
1. The Platform Council invites small-business owners to submit reports and supporting evidence concerning four kinds of platform decisions: account suspension, removal of a listing or other business content, withholding or delaying a payout, and a change in fees. The Council is examining whether these practices create recurring problems for business users, what procedural safeguards are needed, and whether a common standard can be proposed to platforms that operate across borders.
2. The item is designated PL-001. It is an agenda item for evidence-gathering, not an adopted standard, a legal finding, or an accusation against any particular company. A report may describe an experience that was confusing, harmful, or difficult to resolve without establishing that the platform acted unlawfully or that the same practice occurs elsewhere. The Council will distinguish what a member directly experienced from what the member believes caused it and from what the evidence independently supports.
3. The Council is asking for evidence from owners in every country and from businesses of different sizes and kinds. A business may sell goods, provide services, or depend on a platform for payments, customer access, bookings, software tools, or another commercial function. The Council does not require that a business use a particular platform or that a report fit a predetermined conclusion. Reports that show a process worked well, or that a
dispute was resolved promptly, can also help explain what practical safeguards are possible.
4. This call sets out the question, the boundaries of the inquiry, the kinds of material that may be useful, and the way reports are assessed. It is intended to make participation accessible and to reduce the risk that personal experiences are misunderstood, counted inaccurately, or exposed without permission.
2. Why the issue matters
5. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises are central to economic activity. The United Nations reports that they represent about 90 per cent of businesses, 60–70 per cent of employment, and about 50 per cent of GDP worldwide.1 The International Labour Organization estimates that MSMEs account for about 70 per cent of employment worldwide and that about 80 per cent operate in the informal economy.2 These global estimates describe the importance of the sector; they do not establish the scale or cause of any platform practice under review.
6. For an owner, a platform decision can affect a working business in a direct way. A suspended account may interrupt access to customers. A removed listing may make an offer difficult to find. A delayed payout may leave the owner unable to meet ordinary expenses. A fee change may alter whether a sale or service remains viable. The effect depends on the business, the duration and scope of the decision, available alternatives, and the quality of the explanation and review process.
7. The Council does not presume that every restriction is unjustified. Platforms may need to respond to safety concerns, legal requirements, suspected fraud, contractual breaches, technical faults, or other risks. The inquiry is narrower: when a decision materially affects a business user, what notice, explanation, human review, and time limit should be expected, and should those protections be available consistently across the countries in which a platform operates?
8. The Council’s starting concern is that an owner may be left unable to identify the specific problem, to correct it, to contest a mistake, or to understand when money will be released. The evidence call is designed to establish whether those difficulties recur, in what circumstances, and whether a carefully framed procedural response could address them without preventing legitimate platform enforcement.
3. International legal background
9. Existing laws provide relevant cases, but they do not create a single worldwide rule. The Council will consider legal material as context for its analysis and will not treat a rule that applies in one jurisdiction as automatically binding elsewhere. Nothing in this call is legal advice or a determination of any participant’s legal rights.
10. In the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2019/1150, commonly known as the Platform-to-Business Regulation, requires an online intermediation service provider that restricts or suspends a business user from its service to provide a statement of reasons on a durable medium. The provision concerns restrictions or suspensions of the business user’s service; it should not be read here as a guarantee that every dispute will be resolved in the owner’s favour. The Regulation also contains a separate minimum notice requirement for termination of the whole service, subject to the terms and exceptions in the Regulation.3
11. Japan’s Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Specified Digital Platforms establishes obligations for designated platforms, including disclosure concerning the conditions for withholding payments. Its scope is defined by the Act and designation framework. It is therefore a jurisdiction-specific case, not evidence that all platforms or all markets are subject to the same requirements.4
12. These cases help frame questions about reasons, payment conditions, and process. They do not answer whether a particular owner received adequate notice, whether a particular decision was correct, or whether a common
voluntary standard is needed. For those questions the Council needs evidence from owners, considered alongside the applicable rules and the circumstances of each report.
4. The proposed question and safeguards under consideration
13. The Council is gathering evidence to assess a proposed practical baseline: before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, or fee change, a business user should receive written notice, a specific reason, and access to review by a person; a payout hold should also have a time limit. The question for evidence is whether this baseline addresses a recurring problem, whether it needs qualification, and how it could be expressed so that it is workable across countries and different kinds of platform.
14. “Written notice” is intended to mean a communication that the business user can retain and consult. The Council wants to understand whether a message arrived before or after the action, whether it identified what was changing, and whether it provided a usable route to ask questions or seek review. Owners should describe what they actually received and when. They do not need to decide whether a notification meets a legal definition.
15. “A specific reason” means information sufficiently clear for the business user to understand the stated basis for the decision and, where possible, what action could address the issue. The Council is not asking participants to disclose confidential safety systems or to speculate about a platform’s internal processes. It is asking whether the explanation given to the owner was intelligible, relevant to the action, and consistent with later communications.
16. “Review by a person” means a meaningful opportunity for an individual to consider the business user’s request, the information provided, and the decision being challenged. The Council seeks evidence about whether a person could be reached, whether the review considered the facts raised, how long it took, and whether the outcome explained what was decided. A participant should not claim that a review was automated or human unless they know this from a message or another reliable basis; uncertainty should be recorded as uncertainty.
17. “A time limit on payout holds” asks whether the user was told how long funds could remain unavailable, what event would end the hold, and whether the hold continued beyond the time communicated. Reports should distinguish a payout that was pending in ordinary processing from funds expressly withheld, if the available information permits that distinction. The Council is not setting a specific maximum duration in this call.
18. “The same protections in every country the platform operates” is a question of consistency, not a claim that different laws are identical. The Council wants to know whether an owner’s treatment appeared to depend on location, and what facts support that view. A participant may report their own experience without making claims about users in other countries. Comparisons are most useful when they identify a direct basis, such as two documented processes encountered by the same business, rather than an assumption.
5. Questions for owners
19. Owners are invited to answer whichever questions they can. A complete account is useful, but no participant is expected to have every document, know the platform’s internal reason, or answer every question. “I do not know” and “I am not sure” are valid answers.
What happened? Describe the action as you experienced it: an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold, fee change, or another related event. Give an approximate date or period if exact dates are not available.
What part of the business or service was affected? For instance, explain whether you could access an account, offer, customer communication, funds, or a feature. Do not include your business name unless you are choosing to make a public submission.
What notice did you receive, if any? Say whether it came before or after the action, how it was delivered, and whether you could retain it. You may describe a missing notice as well as a notice you received.
What reason was given? Quote or attach the relevant text only if you have permission to share it and can remove identifying or confidential information. Otherwise, summarize it in your own words and identify it as a summary.
Could you request review or ask for clarification? Describe the steps you took, the channels available, whether a person appeared to review the matter, and how long the process took. Separate your observation from your inference.
If funds were held, what amount or range was affected, if you are comfortable sharing it? When did the hold begin and end, or is it still ongoing? What explanation or expected release date was given?
If fees changed, what changed and when did you learn about it? If you can, explain whether the change applied to existing activity or future activity, and how it affected your costs. Do not disclose sensitive pricing information belonging to another business.
What happened next? Describe any correction, appeal outcome, reinstatement, payment, cancellation, or continuing effect. If the matter remains unresolved, say so and give the most recent point in the process.
What would have made the process clearer or fairer? You may suggest a notice, reason, review step, response period, payout deadline, or other practical safeguard. A proposal is not evidence that the underlying event occurred; both are useful and should be described separately.
Do you have a document, record, or other material that supports part of the account? Identify what it is and what point it supports. If you cannot safely share it, you may describe it without uploading it.
20. A report does not need to use legal terminology. It should be as concrete as the owner can make it: what happened, when, what was communicated, what the owner did, and what the result was. If a date or amount is approximate, label it as approximate. If the owner has reconstructed a sequence from memory, say so. The Council values a candid account with clear limits over a more definitive account that goes beyond what the owner knows.
6. What counts as evidence
21. Evidence may include the owner’s first-hand account, platform messages, emails, account notices, fee schedules, payout records, invoices, screenshots, appeal submissions, appeal outcomes, or a dated record of contact with support. A timeline written by the owner can be useful, particularly when it distinguishes contemporaneous records from later recollection. A report may also identify a relevant policy or public-facing process, provided the participant explains how it relates to their own experience.
22. Supporting material need not prove every part of a report. A notification may establish that a particular message was sent, but not whether the underlying reason was correct. A payout record may show that money arrived on a certain date, but not by itself why it was delayed. The Council will record what each item can and cannot establish, rather than treating any single document as conclusive in all respects.
23. Reports without attachments are welcome. Some owners may have lost access to an account or may be unable to retrieve records. Others may reasonably decide that a document contains sensitive customer, employee, or commercial information. Participants should not obtain evidence through unauthorized access, misrepresentation, or a breach of another person’s privacy. Do not submit material that you are not entitled to share.
24. Where a document contains confidential or identifying details, submit only what is necessary if you choose to submit it. Remove customer names, addresses, account identifiers, payment credentials, private messages from unrelated people, and other information that is not needed to understand the issue. Redaction can itself obscure important context, so note that material has been removed and explain generally what type of information it contained. Do not alter a record in a way that changes its meaning.
25. The Council may ask a participant to clarify a date, explain a sequence, or identify which part of a document supports an account. A request for clarification does not imply disbelief or a conclusion about the case. The participant may decline to
answer or may explain that answering would create a privacy, safety, legal, or business risk.
7. Privacy, anonymity, and responsible handling
26. Members are anonymous unless they choose a public seat. The Council does not require an owner to identify their business publicly to contribute evidence. Reports will be handled in a way intended to protect the identity of members and their businesses, and any use of a report in public-facing material should avoid identifying details unless the participant has given informed permission for that specific use.
27. Participants should not name their own business in the account unless they deliberately choose to make a public submission. When describing a platform, use a general description such as “a large marketplace”, “a national retail chain”, or “a payment provider” where naming is unnecessary. Do not name another owner’s business or publish allegations about an identifiable person. The evidence call is for understanding practices, not for compiling public accusations.
28. Anonymity does not mean that the Council can promise that no one could ever infer an identity from a distinctive set of facts. Before submitting, consider whether dates, product details, locations, amounts, or unusual circumstances could identify you. You may generalize details that are not essential, omit material that creates a risk, or ask the Secretariat how to submit a concern without attaching sensitive records.
29. The Council will seek to use information only for the evidence process and related work on the agenda item. Reports may be reviewed in aggregate to identify patterns. If an individual account is considered for a detailed case study, quotation, or other identifiable use, the participant’s permission should be sought beforehand. A participant may state limits on how their information may be used. The Council will not treat submission as blanket consent to publish a person’s story.
30. Participants should not include passwords, full payment-card details, authentication codes, or other credentials. Do not send complete identity documents unless specifically requested through a safe process. A report should not include information about a customer or employee unless it is necessary, lawful to share, and appropriately minimized. When in doubt, describe the relevant fact without attaching the underlying personal information.
8. How reports are counted and assessed
31. The Council assesses whether an issue shows a recurring pattern using five separate considerations: Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread, and Corroboration. These considerations are not a formula that converts every report into a vote. They help the Council ask whether the concern is repeated, whether instances resemble one another, how widely they are distributed, and whether accounts can be supported by material beyond an unsupported general claim.
Volume: How many distinct reports describe a relevant experience? The Council will distinguish separate owners and events from repeated submissions about the same event.
Frequency: How often does the reported practice occur, and over what period? A cluster of events in a short period may mean something different from occasional events spread over a longer period.
Consistency: Do reports describe comparable steps or effects, or do they differ in important ways? Similar language alone does not establish that events had the same cause.
Spread: Across which countries, business circumstances, or kinds of platform use do reports arise? The Council will not infer global reach from a small number of reports or assume that a report represents a whole country.
Corroboration: Is an account supported by records, separate first-hand reports, or other material that bears on the same point? Corroboration strengthens an assessment but is not a condition for making an initial report.
32. The Council will seek to count distinct experiences accurately. A follow-up message that supplies additional documents for an existing event should ordinarily add evidence to that report rather than become a second event. If one owner describes several separate actions, the Council may record the events individually while taking care not to represent them as several independent owners. These distinctions matter because totals can otherwise overstate the number or spread of affected businesses.
33. A report’s country is counted according to the participant’s stated location or the relevant business context, using the information supplied. The Council will not use a country label as proof that the practice is uniform there. It will also distinguish the location of the owner, the market in which the activity took place, and any other location mentioned, where those details are available and relevant.
34. The evidence process begins with five reports from five countries, including four Platform Council reports from four countries. The Platform Council has two members from two countries. In those Platform reports, the median amount at stake is approximately US$9,061; the reported situations include three account suspensions and one instance of funds held. Reported team sizes are 75 per cent “Just me” and 25 per cent “2–9”. Four Platform reports were filed in the last 30 days. The country breakdown by Platform reports is one each from the Netherlands, the Philippines, Canada, and the United Kingdom. These are the available internal figures as of 10 February 2026; they are an early snapshot, not a prevalence estimate or a conclusion that the same practice occurs in each country.
35. The Council may revise its understanding as further reports arrive, as evidence is clarified, or as contrary experiences are submitted. It will not treat the five tests as a finding of wrongdoing. Passing a pattern test means that the Council considers a concern sufficiently evidenced to proceed to the next stage of its process; it does not establish a legal violation or decide the merits of any individual dispute.
9. From evidence to a possible standard
36. The Council’s work follows a sequence: reports are gathered; the five-part pattern test is applied; a draft response may be prepared; the draft is opened for public consultation; the Assembly considers and votes on a proposal; and, if adopted, letters may be sent to the chief executives able to adopt it. The status of any resulting seat is tracked separately. At this stage, PL-001 is at the evidence-gathering stage. No standard has been adopted and no company has been asked to sign anything through this call.
37. If the evidence supports further work, a draft should state the problem with appropriate limits, explain the proposed safeguard, and identify questions where the evidence remains incomplete. Consultation would allow owners, platforms, partners, and other interested people to comment on feasibility, unintended effects, and differences across legal and commercial settings. The Council would consider comments before an Assembly ballot; consultation alone would not make a proposal binding or adopted.
38. An eventual proposal may be revised or may not proceed. The Council may find that reported experiences are too varied to support one common response, that the evidence points to a narrower issue, or that an existing mechanism addresses part of the concern. It may also conclude that the proposed safeguards need to be stated differently. The purpose of collecting evidence is to make these choices on a clearer record, not to guarantee a predetermined outcome.
10. Timeline and participation
39. This call begins with the launch of the Platform Council on 10 February 2026. The next stages are evidence intake and review; publication of an assessment of the pattern evidence; preparation of a draft, if warranted; a public consultation on any draft; consideration of revisions; and an Assembly ballot on any final proposal. Dates for later stages will be communicated separately. The sequence may be adjusted if additional time is needed to review evidence responsibly.
40. Owners may participate from any country. A report may be submitted in the language the owner can use most accurately. If a supporting document is in another language, provide the original where safe and, if available, a plain-language summary or translation. Do not delay a report solely because a certified translation is unavailable. If translation makes a phrase uncertain, mark it as uncertain rather than silently changing its meaning.
41. A participant may submit a concise report first and add relevant information later. Include the agenda item PL-001 where possible so the material can be routed correctly. The Secretariat may group reports for review, ask clarifying questions, and record limitations on a report’s use. Participation is voluntary. An owner may withhold any detail they do not wish to share and may ask questions about confidentiality before providing sensitive material.
42. The Council welcomes reports from owners who experienced an adverse action, owners who sought an explanation or review, and owners whose issue was resolved satisfactorily. It also welcomes information about a process that gave clear notice, a reason, a person to contact, and a defined timeframe. Evidence of effective practice can help distinguish a procedural safeguard that is achievable from one that is merely aspirational.
11. Closing invitation
43. The Council asks owners to describe events carefully, preserve the distinction between fact and inference, and share only information they are entitled and comfortable to provide. A report does not need to prove a universal problem. It should help answer a narrower question: what occurred, what process was available, what effect followed, and what safeguard would have made the process clearer or more workable?
44. The Council will consider reports as evidence, not as a public ranking of companies and not as a substitute for individual legal advice. Its responsibility is to test whether a shared problem can be established with care, to hear relevant differences, and to propose a response only if the evidence justifies one. Owners in every country are invited to contribute to that work.
Platform Council — evidence call for agenda item PL-001. Reports should describe practices and processes; members and their businesses remain anonymous unless they choose otherwise.
Notes and sources
Sources
This document has no standing until adopted under the Founders Charter. Reseated Councils is not affiliated with the United Nations.