For years, the public conversation about the urgency of regulating tech platforms was concentrated almost exclusively in Silicon Valley.
The spotlight fell on the large corporations that shaped the internet and that, with their expansion, stressed the limits of democracy, privacy and public deliberation.
However, while the debate looked north, in Latin America their own platforms grew that replicated abusive practices and built an ecosystem where the consumer was left unprotected, trapped between opaque algorithms and non-existent service systems.
The Rise of Digital Intermediaries
By: Gabriel E. Levy B.
The expansion of digital platforms in Latin America occurred in the heat of the promise of efficiency.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the region enthusiastically welcomed intermediation models that offered to simplify travel, purchases, and deliveries.
Companies such as MercadoLibre, Despegar and later Rappi emerged as solutions to fragmented and bureaucratic markets. The dominant narrative celebrated regional entrepreneurship and the possibility of competing with global giants.
Platforms are not simple intermediaries, but new centers of power.
In The Information Age, whoever controls digital flows conditions the economy and politics. In the region, this warning went almost unnoticed.
Regulation progressed slowly, while business models grew supported by regulatory gaps. Blind faith in technology hid relations of domination under discourses of innovation and progress.
In this context, Latin American states favored attracting investment rather than strengthening consumer protection frameworks.
The result was fertile ground for systematic abuses that today are expressed in thousands of daily complaints.
Between advertising and silence
The case of Despegar became an emblem of this problem.
The company built an image associated with enjoyment and rest, reinforced by advertising campaigns with global figures such as Shakira.
However, behind this aspirational aesthetic, thousands of travelers denounced very different experiences.
Users report transfers that never arrived, hotels that did not coincide with what was promised and non-existent excursions. When the problem occurred, the service channel was reduced to automated, algorithmic forms and generic responses.
The contrast between ad spend and customer service revealed a troubling logic.
Did the company prioritize attracting new users before resolving the conflicts of existing ones?
The public complaint migrates to social networks, where the claims accumulated without an effective response.
Shoshana Zuboff, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, explains how these types of platforms design systems oriented towards scale and not responsibility.
The user stopped being a customer to become a data.
Something similar happens with Rappi.
The Colombian unicorn promised speed and comfort, but thousands of orders remained undelivered despite being charged.
Consumers face chatbots that are unable to solve specific situations.
At the same time, the delivery workers denounce opaque settlements and discounts that arbitrarily reduced their income.
The platform presents itself as an intermediary, shirking labor and commercial responsibilities.
The market as a labyrinth
MercadoLibre, a symbol of regional e-commerce, does not escape this pattern either. Making a claim for an undelivered package becomes an exhausting journey.
Automated systems divert the user from one section to another, without a concrete solution.
The company, which consolidated a logistics infrastructure on a continental scale, maintained a growing distance from the individual consumer.
The criticism extends to other digital retail companies.
Falabella’s applications became a trend on social networks for charging for products that never arrived.
The pattern was repeated: insufficient service channels, late responses and absence of face-to-face instances of complaint. The consumer was left alone in front of corporations that operated in multiple countries, taking advantage of regulatory fragmentation.
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman wrote that liquid modernity diluted responsibilities. In the Latin American digital environment, this liquidity translated into companies that were difficult to reach and states unable to sanction effectively. Everyday experience showed that the damage was not exceptional, but structural.
Interposition of Subjects and Tax Evasion?
In Colombia, as in many other Latin American countries, one of the most sensitive aspects linked to digital travel platforms is related to tax practices that generate serious doubts from a tax point of view, especially with regard to the treatment of VAT.
In the case of Despegar, the scheme that is observed works as follows: the company issues an initial invoice to the end user in which it does not discriminate the VAT corresponding to the accommodation, under the figure of intermediation. Subsequently, the traveller pays VAT directly at the hotel, although they do not receive an invoice in their name, as the establishment invoices that tax to the platform.
As a result, the VAT is recorded in Despegar’s accounts, which incorporates it into its balance sheets and crosses it as a tax credit.
This type of operation is associated, in the tax literature, with the so-called interposition of subjects, a modality that does not necessarily imply the non-existence of the tax, but does raise questions about its correct imputation, traceability and possible undue compensation. So far there are no known sanctions from the DIAN for this practice, which they have managed to hide without attracting attention.
The situation is even more complex in the case of other international platforms that market thousands of accommodations in Colombia, such as Bookins.com or Hotels.com a brand of the wholesaler Expedia, which uses the same practice.
These companies, protected by the absence of a formal headquarters in the country, do not issue electronic invoices for operations carried out with Colombian consumers.
From a tax perspective, this practice is linked to what is known as omission of invoicing, a conduct of greater potential gravity, since it directly hinders tax control and reduces the capacity of the State to verify and collect the taxes associated with these transactions, without this implying prejudging individual responsibilities until administrative or judicial decisions are made. Finally, what these companies do is take advantage of legal loopholes that they use in their favor.
Neither “the best price” nor “the cheapest tickets”
In Latin America, effective sanctions against large digital tourism and commerce startups are usually rather punctual when compared to the volume of operations and complaints that circulate in consumer protection networks and offices.
In Colombia, one of the most cited precedents occurred when the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce ordered the site’s operators lostiquetesmasbaratos.com refrain from advertising with the expression “the cheapest tickets” until it could be sustained as a verifiable statement, considering that such a promise could mislead and constitute deception in the market.
Along the same lines, actions by the SIC against Despegar related to the use of advertising phrases associated with “best price” or “best price guaranteed” were also documented, with decisions that ordered the withdrawal or abstention of using these messages when they did not correspond to reality, and even with administrative measures linked to the National Tourism Registry at certain times.
Outside Colombia, Chile offers another verifiable example: in 2023, SERNAC reported a ruling in Aysén that sentenced Despegar to restitute money, pay moral damages, and also apply a fine for violation of the Consumer Law in an individual case, which shows that there are judicial decisions, although they are usually limited to specific litigation and do not always translate into structural correctives of the care model.
A recurring example is that of Rappi, which in Colombia was fined by the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) for more than one billion pesos due to violations of the consumer statute, including deficiencies in the quality of service, double charging for orders, non-compliance with deliveries and failures in the information delivered to users. as well as the sale of liquor to minors without adequate age verification mechanisms, which the authority considered a violation of basic consumer rights.
In addition, in 2025 the SIC opened a new administrative investigation against Rappi for alleged violation of consumer rights, pointing to possible breaches in the delivery of products, lack of transparent information, omissions in prices per unit of measure and deficiencies in complaint response channels, which illustrates persistent tensions between regulatory requirements and commercial practices of the platform.
MercadoLibre in Colombia was sanctioned by the SIC for the improper processing of users’ biometric data, after conditioning access to the platform on the provision of sensitive information through facial recognition and refusing to delete that data in accordance with the right of habeas data, in a decision that included a fine and orders to adjust its authentication mechanisms.
In Brazil, there are also concrete precedents of sanctions, regulatory measures and legal disputes that show how the authorities have tried to control digital platforms and defend the rights of real consumers and users.
One of the most visible actions occurred in 2025 when the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) imposed a fine of approximately R$ 6.27 million on Mercado Livre for allowing the offer of non-approved telecommunications products on its platform, forcing the company to face joint and several liability for what is sold in its virtual space and maintaining the sanction despite the appeals filed by the company.
This case marked a firmer stance by Brazilian regulators against practices considered risky for the safety and rights of consumers in e-commerce.
In addition, in the field of competition, the antitrust authorities of the Administrative Council of Economic Defense (CADE) intervened against the food delivery platform iFood to limit exclusivity clauses with restaurants considered potentially anticompetitive, achieving commitments that seek to open space for competition in the delivery market.
Although they do not always translate into direct economic sanctions, these measures show that the Brazilian regulatory environment also responds to complaints and denunciations about conduct that may harm users, suppliers and competition, reflecting a context in which the State tries to balance technological innovation with the protection of rights in a dynamic digital market.
These examples demonstrate that, although the sanctions applied may be punctual or focused on specific aspects (service, information, personal data), there are direct regulatory pressures on Latin American digital startups due to practices that affect consumers, and underscore the need for more robust protection frameworks to accompany the expansion of these platforms.
Democracy, consumption and algorithmic power
The discussion about regulation is usually associated with large US technology companies such as Meta. Rightly, its influence on elections, censorship of content and privacy violations was pointed out. However, limiting the debate to these companies made a broader problem invisible. Latin American platforms replicated practices of algorithmic control and systematic neglect, albeit on a different scale.
From the perspective of consumer rights, the impact was direct. Ruined vacations, lost savings, and time wasted on unanswered claims configured a daily form of violation.
ECLAC studies pointed out that digitalization without regulation deepened asymmetries between companies and citizens. The lack of transparency in algorithms and the outsourcing of responsibilities created a terrain where complaining was almost impossible.
Political scientist Julie Cohen argued that informational power redefines the relationship between individuals and the market. In Latin America, this redefinition occurred without institutional counterweights.
The legal frameworks were designed for analogue economies and did not take into account the complexity of digital intermediaries. Thus, the platforms operated as private spaces with their own rules.
Cases that are repeated throughout the region
In Argentina, consumer associations received thousands of complaints against online travel agencies for non-compliant services.
In Colombia, claims against home delivery applications multiplied during the pandemic, when dependence on these services increased.
In Chile, consumer defense agencies sanctioned digital retailers for repeated non-compliance, although the fines were lower compared to the benefits obtained.
Each case shared a common denominator: The absence of effective human attention. The user interacted with automated systems that prioritized reducing costs rather than resolving conflicts. The consumer experience became an asymmetrical relationship where the company always had an advantage.
The State must assume an active role in guiding markets. In the Latin American digital sphere, this orientation has not yet arrived. Regulation advanced fragmented and reactive, while platforms consolidated dominant positions.
In conclusion, the discussion on the regulation of technology platforms in Latin America cannot be limited to large Silicon Valley corporations. Companies born in the region reproduced practices that violated the basic rights of consumers and workers.
Despegar, Rappi, MercadoLibre and Falabella, among many others, show a pattern of neglect and opacity that demands urgent responses. Regulating does not imply slowing down innovation, but establishing clear rules that balance power between users and platforms. Without such a framework, digitalization will continue to widen inequalities and weaken social trust.
References
- Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia.Sanctioning resolution against Rappi for violations of the Consumer Statute, including failures in information, improper charges and control in the sale of alcohol to minors.
- Millionaire fine against Rappi in Colombia for violating user rights.
- Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia.Opening of an administrative investigation against Rappi for alleged violation of consumer rights, deficiencies in deliveries, price information and service channels.
- Mobile Time America Latina.La SIC is investigating Rappi for alleged violations of consumer rights in Colombia.
- Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia.Sanction to MercadoLibre for improper processing of biometric data and violation of the right to habeas data.
- MercadoLibre sanctioned in Colombia for violation of customer biometric data.
- National Consumer Service of Chile (SERNAC). Conviction against Despegar for violations of the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights, with restitution of money, moral damages and fine.
- Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia.Administrative decision against lostiquetesmasbaratos.com for misleading advertising and misleading the consumer.
- Castells, M. The information age. Alianza Editorial.
- Morozov, E. The madness of technological solutionism. Katz Editores.
- Zuboff, S. The era of surveillance capitalism. Paidós.
- Digital economy and regulation in Latin America.
- Cohen, J. Between Truth and Power. Oxford University Press.
- Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (ANATEL).
Sanctioning resolution against Mercado Livre for allowing the commercialization of non-approved telecommunications equipment, with the imposition of a millionaire fine and administrative confirmation of the sanction. - Anatel’s fine against Mercado Livre exceeds six million reais for the sale of non-approved products.
- Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE).
Decision and behavioral commitments imposed on iFood in investigations for anticompetitive practices linked to exclusivity clauses with restaurants. - Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development (OECD).
Competition enforcement in digital markets in Brazil. Case iFood and exclusivity agreements.
