The Framework

Thailand’s draft Digital Platform Economy Act (DPEA) includes a proposed ban on self-preferencing by so-called “gatekeepers”—large digital platforms with significant influence over online markets.[1] The regulation prohibits gatekeepers from ranking or displaying their own goods or services in ways that prioritize them over third-party offerings.^[2] It applies to search results and recommendation systems used within the platform.^[3] The measure would require structural and algorithmic changes to how covered platforms display results when they offer both marketplace infrastructure and competing products.^[4] The draft includes penalties for noncompliance, including revenue-based fines.^[5] This provision would impose advanced restrictions on business model design and recommendation logic before any finding of harm or market failure.

Implications for U.S. Technology Leadership

Thailand’s proposed self-preferencing ban imposes structural restrictions that disproportionately affect U.S. technology companies. The regulation applies only to so-called “gatekeepers,” defined by thresholds for market size, user base, and annual revenue. In practice, nearly all firms that meet these criteria are based in the United States. As a result, the policy functionally discriminates by imposing compliance obligations and algorithmic restrictions on American companies while exempting domestic and regional competitors operating below the thresholds. These firms are required to redesign product ranking systems, separate internal services from platform infrastructure, and preemptively justify design decisions under vague standards of “unfair” prioritization, without evidence of consumer harm or anticompetitive effect.[6]

The proposed rule adds to growing fragmentation in global digital regulation. It introduces ex-ante constraints on platform design and internal business model decisions in one of Southeast Asia’s largest digital economies and grants domestic regulators broad discretionary power to impose further obligations through secondary rules. For U.S. firms that operate on a global scale, this creates a patchwork of obligations across jurisdictions, driving up compliance costs and reducing their flexibility in deploying standardized features across markets. If replicated across other ASEAN states, the model risks entrenching structural disadvantages for U.S. platforms in a region critical to long-term digital competitiveness.

Endnotes