Why skies are still cloudy for online marketplaces

MyAircraft.com is cleared and ready for take-off. Yesterday, the European Commission (EC) concluded its investigation into the online aerospace marketplace, declaring it acceptable in the eyes of competition authorities.

So does this set a precedent that puts all B2B e-marketplaces in the clear?

The answer is a resounding no, and here's why. The EC's official statement gives two primary reasons why MyAircraft.com escaped punishment: there are sufficient rivals in the aerospace market to prevent the B2B site becoming a monopoly and MyAircraft.com will probably be one of many media by which Honeywell and United Technologies conduct their trade.

Those two statements define, fairly tightly, where other e-marketplaces will and will not be allowed to tread. If there are a limited number of companies operating a site - that is, there are sufficient rivals - then the EC will not step in. Moreover, if the companies concerned do not set up their e-marketplaces as closed-shops, then they will escape the beady eye of the regulators.

If the EC is true to its word, then there are many B2B marketplaces with nothing to fear. A typical example is eGreenCoffee, which claims among its initial backers 35 per cent of the coffee buyers in the world - hardly a high enough proportion of the market to warrant investigation.

On the flip side though, the automotive industry could well find the EC taking a keener interest.

Let's lay aside the ominous fact that the car industry pioneered proprietary EDI for a moment. Last February, DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors joined forces to build a joint online purchasing system.

Between them, these three leviathans own a scarily large percentage of the European automotive market. So if any online market is to be a likely candidate for the EC's second internet investigation - it's that one. Just wait and see.