Commission hosts workshop with online platforms on fair and transparent online shopping

Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice, is today hosting a workshop with major online platforms (Airbnb, Allegro, AliExpress / Alibaba, Amazon, Bol, Booking, Cdiscount, eBay, Emag, ETSY, Expedia, Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor, Wish, Yelp, and Zalando) to promote best practices for online shopping. Discussions will focus on preventing fake user reviews, transparent ranking of search results and informing consumers about third party suppliers on platforms. Today’s meeting is part of the Commission’s ongoing efforts to make consumer protection in the EU as strong online as it is offline – a goal set out in the recently adopted New Consumer Agenda. Part of this work is the collaboration with major platforms on the practical implementation of EU consumer protection rules – an example of which is the removal of millions of COVID-19-related illegal online listings following extensive contact between the Commission and the platforms. Workshops such as today’s will also feed into the Commission’s work to update its existing guidance on the application of EU legislation – the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the Consumer Rights Directive. At the same time, the Commission will also analyse whether additional legislation or other actions are needed in order to ensure fairness for consumers – offline as well as online.