Providers of online intermediation services tend to use pre-formulated terms and conditions and in order to effectively protect business users where needed, this Regulation should apply where the terms and conditions of a contractual relationship, regardless of their name or form, are unilaterally determined by the provider of online intermediation services. Whether the terms and conditions were unilaterally determined should be evaluated case by case on the basis of an overall assessment. For that overall assessment, the relative size of the parties concerned, the fact that a negotiation took place, or that certain provisions thereof might have been subject to such a negotiation and determined together by the relevant provider and business user should not, in itself, be decisive. In addition, the obligation for providers of online intermediation services to make their terms and conditions easily available to business users, including in the pre-contractual stage of their commercial relationship, means that business users will not be deprived of the transparency resulting from this Regulation as a result of them being in any way able to successfully negotiate.
