The Competition Commission has reiterated its call for public comment on the recently published provisional findings and recommendations report of the Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry.

Stakeholders have until August 24 to provide comment.

The provisional report was published on July 13, outlining its findings and recommendations after 14 months of evidence gathering, public hearings and in-camera hearings into online intermediation platforms, including e-commerce, applications stores, travel and accommodation platforms, food delivery and online classifieds.

Public views are required on whether the inquiry characterised the markets, the competitive dynamics, market features and conduct characterisation sufficiently and whether there are areas where stakeholders think the inquiry should have made findings.

The commission further aims to obtain input into whether the proposed remedial action will successfully address the concerns highlighted in the findings of the provisional report; are sufficient to address the issues that were the subject of the findings; will result in any unintended consequences or may be bypassed; can be monitored and enforced; and whether an alternative remedial action would better address the concerns in the findings.

The Competition Commission aimed to identify any market features that have adverse effects on competition among the various platforms, between businesses using these platforms and the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises and historically disadvantaged persons as both platform and business users.

The inquiry identified leading platforms in each category, which are those that get the most consumer traffic, upon which the business users are relatively dependent and which are, or are likely to be, entrenched.

These leading platforms are Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Takealot, Booking.com, Airbnb, Mr Delivery, Uber Eats, Property24, Private Property, AutoTrader and Cars.co.za, as well as Google Search and its specialist search units such as Google Shopping and Google Travel.