The Changing Shape of EU Private Law in Response to Digital Innovation

Technological developments are having an increasingly significant impact on private law relationships. New business opportunities and smart technologies are altering the equilibrium of the established paradigms that form the basis of many legal rules. Several questions have arisen as a result of those changes, going beyond the national level to also affect European and international issues.The present contribution focuses on the status of information and data as a tradeable commodity and as a “means of payment” alternative to money, on the proposed legislative instruments for a Digital Single Market concerning consumers’ and users’ rights when buying goods, services or digital content, on the new features of standard contracts in the digital market, and on some major issues of the platform economy.