The sharing economy, also known as collaborative consumption, is an economic model that is usually facilitated by an online platform that improves services, such as apartment renting, car-sharing, crowdfunding, etc. In the beginning, the European Union has dealt admirably with the advances in this area by enacting the Directive 2000/31/EC and Directive (EU) 2015/1535. However, the sharing economies have since gained increased significance. With the rise and influence of companies such as Uber, Airbnb, and SoFi, recent innovations in the field of sharing economy have proven to be too substantial and wide-ranging for the current legislation to be able to adequately follow them or even regulate them. These companies can define themselves in different ways and can fit into the category of the information society services, which are covered by the European Directives.

In an attempt to mitigate the legal uncertainty, the member states of the European Union responded in a divergent manner to comparable issues. For example, some have banned Uber in their cities due to non-compliance with the rules that had to be followed by taxi companies, others have capped the maximum duration of stays with Airbnb. While the member states are struggling to find methods to adapt to the rise of the new technologies, it seems that new regulations could be the possible way forward. In this paper, the authors present potential solutions to the legal uncertainty in the European Union.