In November 2017, the European Parliament approved a new directive which aims to increase the protection of consumers who perform online shopping activities, especially across the borders within the European Union. The new amendment tries to reach that goal by strengthening and encouraging the cooperation between competent bodies of different member states while promoting the consumer rights. The member states of the European Union have now two years to accommodate their national legislation to the approved European regulation.
For the Czech consumer it means that if a foreign business breaks the consumer protection rules, the system is to be set in such a manner that Czech authorities will be able to collect data necessary to identify and, hence, to expose the dishonest business and demand that appropriate measures should be taken by the relevant authorities which would lead to rectification of the status quo.
If needed, the respective national bodies will be allowed to perform the so-called “mystery shopping“ in order to gain evidence that businesses breach the consumer protection regulations.
Newly, the national authorities are to be entitled to remove any harmful content or restrict the access to websites, applications and other online environment, which is used by businesses to perform their activities breaching the consumer protection rules or order the provider of the hosting services to remove the websites or online environment or restrict access to these, or even order the web domain administrator to erase the domain name which is used for unfair purposes.
