THE NEW EU REGULATION ON GEOBLOCKING

On 3 December 2018, Regulation (EU) 2018/302 came into force, addressing geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers' nationality, place of residence or place of establishment within the internal market.

This is an important measure that contributes to the creation of the Digital Single Market and will support the development of cross-border e-commerce by eliminating unjustified geographic blockades implemented by some suppliers of goods and services, which can give rise to discriminatory commercial practices.

Specifically, e-commerce site owners must remove any unjustified nationality-based blocks to allow users to access the Site; redirections to another Site must be authorized by the User with their express consent to the redirection; purchase forms (electronic order forms) must allow orders to be forwarded to all Users from other Member States.

Furthermore, traders will not be able to apply discriminatory prices to consumers:

• in the sale of goods to be delivered to a Member State where the trader offers delivery or which are collected from a specific location agreed with the customer;

• in the sale of electronically provided services, such as cloud computing;

• in the sale of services that consumers receive at the place where the trader operates, including an overnight stay in a hotel, renting a car or attending a sporting event.

The Regulation does not provide for an obligation to harmonize prices at Community level and consequently, traders will remain free to set prices, provided they do so in a non-discriminatory manner.

It is important that consumers and businesses are aware of their rights, duties, and the limitations of the Regulation, which aims to contribute to improving the market without impacting or burdening operators by creating fair access conditions.