The relevance of contracting and self-regulation in consumer markets has increased rapidly in recent years, in particular in the platform economy. Online platforms provide opportunities for businesses and consumers to connect with strangers, often across borders, trading products, and services. In this new economy, platform operators create, apply and enforce their own rules in their contractual relationships with users. This book examines the substance of these rules and the space for private governance beyond the reach of state regulation. Vanessa Mak explores recent developments in lawmaking 'beyond the state' with case studies focusing on companies such as Airbnb and Amazon. The book asks how common values and objectives of EU law, such as consumer protection and contractual fairness, can be safeguarded when lawmaking shifts to a space outside the reach of state law.

Vanessa Mak is a Professor of Private Law and Vice Dean for Research at Tilburg Law School. Her research focuses on the role of private law in the economic regulation of the European (consumer) market, with particular focus on consumer contract law, credit and investment law, data protection and the platform economy. Prior to her appointment in Tilburg, Vanessa held positions as a Lecturer in Law at Oriel College, Oxford and as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. Vanessa has law degrees from Erasmus University Rotterdam (LL.M 2001, cum laude) and from the University of Oxford, where she obtained her D.Phil on Performance-Oriented Remedies in European Sale of Goods Law (published with Hart Publishing, 2009).