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Platform Council
August 2026 Chair’s Letter to Members
Dear members,
August brought a change in the work we are doing together. For months, members’ reports and consultation comments helped us describe a recurring problem and shape a practical response. On 13 August, the Founders Assembly adopted the Platform Fairness Standard. A week later, we sent it to seven chief executives whose platforms serve small businesses. Those are real steps, but they are not the finish line. A standard matters when people who make decisions can use it, and when the protections it describes become ordinary practice.
What moved this month
The Assembly adopted the Platform Fairness Standard as resolution RC/PL/RES/2026/1. The vote was 86.4% in favour, with 58% turnout. The standard asks for four basic safeguards before an account suspension, listing removal, payout hold or fee change: written notice, a specific reason, review by a person, and a time limit on payout holds. It also asks that these protections apply in every country where a platform operates.
On 20 August, the Secretariat sent the adopted standard to the chief executives of Amazon, Shopify, PayPal, Block, eBay, Etsy and Apple. The letters were delivered between 24 and 26 August. As of today, no replies are on record. We will keep the seat tracker accurate: letters sent, delivered, replied, signed, or still an empty chair. We will not mistake delivery for agreement, or silence for a decision.
On 25 August, consultation opened on the Cashflow Council’s CF-001 draft. That is another important part of our process: reports first, then a pattern test, a draft, public consultation, a ballot and, if adopted, letters to the people able to act. The Platform Council’s standard has travelled that route. CF-001 is now in the stage where members and the public can test its wording against their experience.
The numbers behind the work
As of 27 August, Reseated has 1,410 seated members in 49 countries. Members have filed 4,224 reports from 50 countries. By council, the reports are: Platform, 1,799; Cashflow, 1,117; Fair Play, 470; Trade, 322; Red Tape, 221; Resilience, 174; and Team, 121. These are not seven versions of one issue. They are different windows onto the practical conditions under which small businesses try to operate.
The Platform Council has 426 members across 48 countries, with reports from 50 countries. In those 1,799 reports, 1,012 describe an account suspension and 787 describe funds being held. The median amount at stake is approximately US$4,102. In the last 30 days, 156 more reports were filed. Those figures help us describe the scale and range of the pattern; they do not tell us everything about any one member’s situation.
The reports also come from businesses of very different sizes. Thirty-seven per cent of Platform Council members who reported said they work alone; 42% have teams of 2–9, 17% have teams of 10–49, and 4% have teams of 50–249. The need for a clear explanation and a timely review does not disappear when a business has only one person available to pursue it.
One member’s experience
One anonymized report described a small online business run by an owner with a team of three. The owner found that the account had been suspended and a payout held. The notice did not identify the particular transaction or listing at issue, and the team could not tell what material would answer the concern. They submitted information through the available support channel, but had no named person to contact and no clear date by which the hold would be reviewed.
The important detail was not simply that the business disagreed with a decision. It was that the owner could not understand what needed to be corrected, could not reach a person who could review the case, and could not plan around the held funds. For a small team, uncertainty itself becomes work: checking the account, gathering records, trying another channel, and deciding which bills can wait. The standard does not promise that every decision will be reversed. It asks for a process that lets a business understand and respond to a decision, and know when a held payout will be reviewed.
What we learned
First, process details are not minor details. “Give notice” is not enough if the notice offers no specific reason. “Contact support” is not enough if there is no meaningful human review. And a payout hold without a time limit can leave a business unable to make basic plans.
Second, a shared standard needs to be clear across borders. Our members work under different national rules, but the experience of receiving a vague notice or waiting without a review date is familiar across countries. The Assembly’s decision asks for a baseline, not a claim that every legal system is identical.
Third, consultation and evidence make the proposal stronger. The Platform draft received 487 comments during its consultation. Members helped us make the text more useful and more precise. We should expect the same discipline from ourselves on CF-001: read the draft closely, point to the language that works or fails, and explain what a practical fix would look like.
What comes next
CF-001 remains open for public consultation until 24 September. Please review the draft and send specific, constructive comments before it closes.
On 8 September, FP-001 is scheduled to complete its five-part pattern test. If the evidence meets the test, the next step will be a draft and public consultation—not a shortcut to adoption.
The first Platform letters are now in the delivery-and-response stage. We will update the seat tracker when a reply or other formal action is recorded, and only then.
We will continue the monthly Open Tables, where members can compare experiences across regions and councils without needing to identify their businesses publicly.
Thank you to Aisha in Lagos, Mateo in São Paulo, Lena in Hamburg and Priya in Manila for the time and care you have given this month. Thank you as well to everyone who filed a report, checked a draft, joined a consultation or helped another member find their way through the process. We keep members anonymous unless they choose a
public seat; the work can still be visible in the quality of the evidence and the care we take with it.
MSMEs make up the great majority of businesses worldwide and account for a substantial share of employment and economic activity. Those broad figures matter, but our work begins with the particular consequences of a decision for a particular business. We will keep listening, testing patterns, improving proposals and asking the people with the power to act to take them seriously.
With thanks,
Robert NikicAdvisory Council Chair, Reseated CouncilsUnited States