The Competition Commission on Monday published wide-ranging remedial actions for Google, Apple, Takealot and food delivery applications, such as Uber Eats and Mr D Food, besides others, to level the competitive playing field in South Africa's online platform landscape.

The anticipated final report on the Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry (OIPM) was published on Monday, two years after being initiated to investigate whether there are market features of online intermediation platforms that may impede, distort or restrict competition, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises and historically disadvantaged persons in these markets.

The business-to-consumer (B2C) platforms probe spanned e-commerce, travel and accommodation, software and application stores, online classifieds, food delivery and transparent advertising, platforms that were selected as they affect a wide range of business activities throughout the country’s economy.

The Competition Commission also reviewed the role of Google Search in shaping B2C platform competition.

Handing over the final report to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel on Monday, Competition Commissioner Doris Tshepe said that the remedial actions that platforms, and some businesses, are required to implement to remedy the identified market features that adversely affect competition, will provide greater visibility for smaller South African platforms, enable more intense platform competition, and level the playing field for small businesses selling through online platforms.

The platforms required to implement remedial actions include Google, Booking.com, Takealot, Apple, Uber Eats, Mr D Food, Property24, Private Property, AutoTrader and Cars.co.za. Other businesses include national restaurant chains, Bolt Food and Prop Data.

The inquiry found that Google Search is a critical gateway to consumers for all platforms and its business model of paid search alongside free results favours large established platforms.

The report determined that Google needs to provide a South African badge and search filter to aid consumer support for South African platforms and introduce a new platform sites unit to display smaller South African platforms relevant to the search, along with training and R180-million in advertising credits. Google is to implement in South Africa the changes it makes in Europe to address self-preferencing.

In terms of e-commerce, Takealot, the report found, faces a conflict of interest on its site, as its retail division competes with marketplace sellers leading to behaviour that has disadvantaged sellers, while in the travel and accommodation category, Booking.com’s restrictions on hotel pricing on other online channels limits competition and creates a dependency that is used to extract higher commission fees, explained Competition Commission chief economist James Hodge.

The Competition Commission said that Booking.com is required to remove the restrictive pricing clauses from its contracts, while Takealot must segregate its retail division from its marketplace operations, preventing its retail services from accessing seller data and unilaterally stopping sellers from competing for certain brands.

Meanwhile, Google Play and Apple App stores were found to be unconstrained in the commission fees they charge application developers and their global business model limits the curation and visibility of South African-paid applications, so the Commission directed the parties to stop preventing applications from directing consumers to pay on the application’s website and to ensure continued free use by consumers of content purchased from that website, along with local app curation.

“Another finding is that competitors to Uber Eats and Mr D Food are disadvantaged by the lack of transparency on menu surcharges across platforms and restrictions placed on franchisees by national restaurant chains,” said Hodge, highlighting that Uber Eats and Mr D Food are now required to inform consumers that they charge restaurants a commission fee and that menu items may be priced differently to takeaway menus, and restaurant chains may not unreasonably restrict the choice of food delivery service by franchisees.

Competitors to Property24 and Private Property are hindered by the lack of interoperability in providing property listings, and small estate agents and automotive dealers are disadvantaged by the discriminatory pricing of Property24, AutoTrader and Cars.co.za that favours large national groups,” he added.

Now property classifieds are required to put in place the ability of estate agencies to share their listings with other classifieds, and Property24, AutoTrader, and Cars.co.za are required to substantially reduce the price of listings to small and medium-sized independent agencies and dealers.

The remedial actions should provide greater visibility and opportunity for smaller South African platforms, enable more intense platform competition, level the playing field for small businesses selling through these platforms, and provide a more inclusive digital economy.

All platforms will be given time to implement the remedial actions depending on the complexity of the remedy.