Digital Ecosystem as a Way of Doing Business: Legal Perspective

Abstract

The paper examines the digital ecosystem as a way of doing business, and highlights the elements that make up the digital ecosystem: the digital environment, subjects — participants in the ecosystem, products sold. The author analyzed Russian digital services that can be classified as digital ecosystems. It is established that it is possible to speak about business ecosystems, the functioning of which is aimed at making a profit, and ecosystems that do not have a commercial purpose. Based on the analysis, the elements of the ecosystem are determined, which include: the holding company and other companies that manage the digital ecosystem; digital platform operators; partners of digital platform operators who sell their products through digital platforms; ecosystem users who consume partner products and intermediary services of digital platform operators. The author concludes that the features of the digital ecosystem associated with its structure should determine the content of future legislative regulation of digital ecosystems, which is in its infancy.