At the turn of the century, a platform was little more than a bank of servers, a chatroom and some rudimentary capability. Today, platforms are vast environments that connect hundreds of millions of people through rich content, huge bodies of data, complex algorithms and incredible functionality. Now, after almost two decades of evolution, a new wave of regulations is poised to radically changing the landscape of liability for digital platforms and services.

Keeping on top of the interrelated and overlapping developments can be a real challenge. This paper puts into context how things have evolved over these 20 years and gives a useful tracker to show the status of key regulatory initiatives and proposals in play at the moment.