Regulation 2018/302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 February 2018 on addressing unjusti ed geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers’ nationality, place of residence or place of establishment within the internal market has been adopted and published This Regulation will be applicable as of 3 December 2018
Geo-blocking is a practice that precludes customers from having access to products or services from websites of other Member States The Regulation will put an end on e-commerce barriers based on the nationality or residence of the customers In particular, Regulation 2018/302 will ensure that EU customers are not subject to prices or o ered products or payment conditions that di er depending on the Member State of the customer.
The new rules do not cover services which main feature is the provision of access to or use of copyrighted materials via intangible means Music streaming services, e-books, online games and so ware are thus excluded from the scope of the Regulation. This type of services will be part of a review to be carried out by the Commission two years a er the entry into force of the Regulation
Regulation 2018/302 shall not apply to the services regulated under Article 2(2) of the EU Services Directive, which include nancial, audio-visual, transport, healthcare and social services.
The new rules prohibit traders to discriminate between customers with regard to general terms and condition −including prices− in the following cases: (i) sales of goods that are delivered in a Member State where the trader o ers delivery or that are collected by the customer at an agreed location; (ii) services that are electronically provided (e.g., cloud services, data warehousing services, website hosting and rewalls); (iii) services received by the customer where the trader operates (e.g., hotels, sports events, car rental, tickets for festivals, etc )
While price discrimination is prohibited, price di erentiation remains possible, which means that traders will still be able to o er di erent commercial conditions and to target speci c customers in concrete territories. Traders will not be required to o er delivery in all Member States.
In addition, it will no longer be possible to apply di erent payment conditions depending on nationality or location of the customers. Limits on access or redirection to di erent websites for nationality or residence reasons will also be forbidden, unless the customer explicitly consents to such redirection
Regulation 2018/302 also establishes that provisions in agreements imposing obligations on traders to act in breach of the Regulation with regard to access to online interfaces, access to goods or services and payment shall be automatically void These provisions may relate to contractual restrictions prohibiting the trader to respond to unsolicited requests from customers for the sale of goods, without delivery, outside the trader’s contractually allocated territory for reasons related to customers’ nationality, place of residence or place of establishment It should be noted that the application of this rule with regard to agreements concluded before 2 March 2018, which are compliant with Article 101 Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (“EU”) and equivalent national provisions, is di ered to 23 March 2020.
