The European Commission's E-Commerce Report: Practical Lessons

For the last two years, the European Commission ("EC") has been carrying out a Sector Inquiry into e-commerce of consumer goods and digital content in the EU. As part of this, the EC has sent companies many questionnaires and, in response, received some 9,000 sales, distribution and licensing agreements.

In parallel, the EC has proposed legislation designed to promote cross-border e-commerce, through the harmonization of rules for the supply of digital content (available here) and online sales of goods (available here), rules against unjustified geo-blocking (available here), and copyright modernization (already adopted, available here). The EC is also considering legislation "to address unfair contractual clauses and trading practices identified in platform-to- business relationships" (available here).