Self-Preferencing in Digital Platform Markets: Contractual Inequality and Reformulating MSME Protection in Indonesia Montayana Meher1, a) , Agata Kurniati 2, b) and Rosmalinda2,
1Faculty of Law, Universitas Medan Area, Indonesia
2Faculty of Law, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Indonesia
Abstract
Digital platform markets have become a central infrastructure of Indonesia^s contemporary economy and
transforming contemporary business relations by embedding contractual governance into algorithmic infrastructures.
While platforms are commonly perceived as neutral intermediaries, many operate simultaneously as market organizers
and competing economic actors. This dual role has facilitated self-preferencing practices, whereby platforms prioritize
their own products or services through contractual discretion and algorithmic governance. Against this background,
existing legal scholarship in Indonesia has predominantly examined self-preferencing from a competition law
perspective, leaving its contractual dimensions and implications for MSME protection underexplored. Responding to this
gap, this research employs a normative legal research method with a conceptual approach to analyze self-preferencing as
a manifestation of contractual inequality in digital platform markets and examining platform contracts as instruments of
private regulation within the Indonesian legal framework, particularly through the principles of freedom of contract, good
faith, and contractual balance. The analysis finds that self-preferencing is structurally enabled by asymmetric platform
contracts, which are predominantly drafted as standard form agreements. These contracts exposing Indonesian MSMEs to
economic dependence and market exclusion without any contractual breach. The article concludes that effective MSME
protection in Indonesia requires a reformulation of contract law responses through strengthened good faith obligations,
limits on unilateral contractual discretion, and explicit recognition of contractual inequality inherent in standard form
platform contracts to ensure fairness, legal certainty, and sustainable digital market governance.
Keywords: Digital platform markets- Self-preferencing- Standard form contracts
Topic: Governance, Policy, and Education of Coastal Area
