Regulation (EU) 2018/302 (‘Geo-blocking Regulation’) aims to provide consumers and
businesses within the EU’s internal market with more opportunities. It addresses the problem of some consumers not being able to buy goods and services from traders located in a different Member State because of their nationality, place of residence or place of establishment.
The Regulation provides for an obligation to treat EU consumers in the same manner when they are in the same situation.
Article 4 of the Regulation sets out the circumstances where there can be no justified reason for Geo-blocking or other forms of discrimination based on nationality, residence or establishment.
In the following situations, consumers from another Member State must have the same access and possibility to acquire goods and services as local consumers. These situations are as follows:
Sale of goods without delivery outside the area served by the trader
A consumer buys goods from a trader who does not deliver to the consumer’s Member State. Such consumers are entitled to pick up their order from the premises where the trader offers this service to local consumers, or have their order delivered to an address where the trader offers delivery to local consumers.
| Example |
| An Irish consumer wants to buy a camera and finds the best deal on a German website, however it only offers delivery/pick-up points in Germany or collection at the trader’s premises. The consumer is entitled to order the goods and collect them at the trader’s premises or have them delivered to another address/pick-up point in Germany, just like any German consumer. |
Sale of electronically supplied services
A consumer wants to access and buy an electronically-supplied service, e.g. cloud services, data warehousing, or website hosting, from a trader established in another Member State. Such consumers are entitled to do so in the same way as local consumers.
| Example |
| An Irish consumer wants to buy anti-virus software from a Spanish company. She will have access and can buy this service at the same conditions as the Spanish consumers, i.e. without having to pay a different net price (i.ie excluding VAT), compared to a Spanish consumer |
Sale of services provided in a specific physical location
A consumer buys a service that is supplied on the trader’s premises or in a physical location where the trader operates, where the premises or the location are in another Member State than in that of the consumer. This category covers services such as concert tickets, accommodation or car hire. In this situation, the consumer is entitled to be treated in the same way as nationals/ residents of the country of the trader.
| Example |
| An Irish family visits a French theme park and wants to take advantage of family discounted tickets. The Irish family will be able to buy the tickets in the same way as French families. |
In the above cases Geo-blocking, or other forms of geographically-based differential treatment, are only possible where an EU or national legal requirement obliges the trader to block access to the goods or services offered. E.g. online services related to non-audiovisual works protected by copyright (such as e-books, video games, music and software).
The Geo-blocking Regulation bans traders from blocking access to websites and re-routing without a consumer’s prior consent. This also applies to non-audiovisual services that are supplied electronically, e.g. e-books, music, games and software. The Regulation also prohibits blocking access to online interfaces or re-routing based on where the means of payment was issued. This increases price transparency by allowing consumers to access different national websites.
| Example |
| An Irish consumer wants to access the Italian version of an online clothing store’s website. Even though she types in the URL of the Italian site, she gets redirected to the Irish site. The Regulation will require that a consumer explicitly gives consent before being redirected. Even if the consumer gives consent to the redirection, the original version she sought to visit should remain accessible. |
While traders are free to accept whatever payment means they want, the Regulation prohibits traders from discriminating within the range of payments they accept. This covers situations where payment methods are treated differently as a result of a consumer’s nationality, place of residence or place of establishment, the location of the payment account, the place of establishment of the payment services provider, or the place of issue of the payment instrument.
| Example |
An Irish trader accepts a certain brand of credit card and direct bank transfers for
purchases on its website. However, the trader has refused payments made with a
credit card from the same brand issued in Austria and credit transfers from Austrian
banks. The Geo-blocking Regulation will now prohibit this practice. |
Differential treatment is prohibited if the following three conditions are met
- Payments are made by means of electronic transactions by credit transfer, direct debit or a card-based payment instrument within the same brand and category;
- Authentication requirements are fulfilled; and
- The payments are in a currency that the trader accepts
This provision should be understood against the background of the 2012 Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Regulation, which stipulates that, when shopping abroad, consumers can use their debit card to make payments in euro as they would in their home country.
