EU Council Agrees To Remove Geo-Blocking Barriers To E-Commerce

The European Union Council of member states today agreed on draft regulations to prevent blocking of cross-border e-commerce, but appears to retain copyright restrictions.

“Geo-blocking is a discriminatory practice that prevents online customers from accessing and purchasing products or services from a website based in another member state,” the Council explained in a press release. The draft regulation will form the common position to start negotiations with the European Parliament and Commission, it said.

The release states that the new rules are in line with EU copyright rules, and appears to maintain an exception for copyright restrictions. The release explains:

“Under the new rules, traders will not be able to discriminate between customers with regard to the general terms and conditions – including prices – they offer on the sales of goods and services in three cases. These are where the trader:

1.    sells goods that are delivered in a member state to which the trader offers delivery or are collected at a location agreed upon with the customer;

2.    provides electronically supplied services, such as cloud services, data warehousing services, website hosting and the provision of firewalls. This does not apply to services where the main feature is the provision of access to or use of copyright protected works or other protected subject matter, or the selling of copyright protected works in an intangible form, such as e-books or online music;

3. provides services which are received by the customer in the country where the trader operates, such as hotel accommodation, sports events, car rental, and entry tickets to music festivals or leisure parks.

Unlike price discrimination, price differentiation will not be prohibited, so traders are free to offer different general conditions of access, including prices, and to target certain groups of customers in specific territories.

Moreover, traders will not be obliged to deliver goods to customers outside the member state to which they offer delivery.”