§6.2 Level of detail

97. Providers should determine the appropriate level of detail considering the objective of the obligation in Article 5 and include as much detail as necessary and appropriate for their specific, professional user base, without overburdening or confusing them. The level of detail provided should go beyond a simple enumeration of main parameters and provide at least a ‘second layer’ of explanatory information. 98. Providers should not give too brief descriptions or descriptions that could be misleading. For example, if a provider determines that ‘quality’ is a main parameter and knows that what makes up ‘quality’ is a complicated analysis of multiple factors, the description they provide should reflect this fact, whilst using plain and intelligible language. Similarly, merely describing that the main parameter may be affected by ‘search history’ could also be considered insufficiently specific, especially where the provider knows that only certain particular elements of the search history are taken into consideration. 99. When drafting the description of the main parameters, including the underlying reasons for their relative importance, it is important for providers to be clear and to avoid confusion. For example, if one of the main parameters is ‘quality’, providers should consider describing exactly what constitutes ‘quality’ for the purposes of their ranking mechanisms, as it is likely to be understood and measured differently from service to service. Another example could be where a parameter is based on a score received, in which case providers should consider describing what factors are taken into consideration when awarding the score. These descriptions should, whenever possible, refer to objective factors, for example, product categories or price units/bands. Similarly, when referring to reviews, the weight of different types of reviews in the overall score and ranking of the user may be different depending on, for example, the specific product or service that the consumer is looking for. An example could be restaurants offering both table service and take away offers, for which services different factors may be more or less important. If applicable, this should be explained in order to go beyond the obvious. The same applies to a scenario where more recent reviews are given more weight over older ones. 100. Where relevant in order to meet the requirements of Article 5, providers could also include explanations based on how a company-internal strategy may affect what consumers see on the service, for example, where the main parameters may be affected by boosting of offers of certain goods based on the providers’ own assessment of what will be the next big consumer trend. The description provided should go into sufficient detail on what is taken into account in making such decisions, so as to provide users with meaningful explanations of the main parameters.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07