European consumer protection has reached another important milestone. The European Parliament had already decided to prohibit geoblocking in relation to streaming services, meaning that a service may no longer be made unavailable to a consumer merely because that consumer is physically located in a different Member State from the service provider. Consumers therefore no longer need to rely on grey-area solutions, such as manipulating their location through a VPN.<\/p>\n
The newly adopted measures go even further: they also prohibit discrimination in online commerce based on a consumer’s location with regard to delivery and payment conditions. Consumers will therefore be able to take advantage of online promotions offered in other Member States or benefit from more favourable terms available there, just as they could if they physically crossed the border to purchase cheaper products from a shop in another country.<\/p>\n
The following real-life example would no longer be possible under the new rules:<\/p>\n
A German national lives on the western side of the Rhine in France. He notices that, as part of an online promotion offered on the German market, he could purchase a coffee machine for only a fraction of the French price. However, when trying to complete his order, he repeatedly receives error messages relating to the delivery address and is eventually redirected to the French version of the website, where the same coffee machine is available only at a significantly higher price.<\/p>\n
As a result of the new rules:<\/p>\n
Geoblocking will not, however, disappear completely from everyday life, at least not for the time being. Traditional television broadcasting services will continue to enjoy certain territorial restrictions. Consequently, it may remain impossible to access channels such as the BBC or ARD online from Hungary without limitations.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the new rules will make it significantly easier for consumers to purchase goods from businesses located in other EU Member States. Ultimately, this should contribute to greater competition and enable consumers to obtain a wider range of products at more favourable prices, even within their own country.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
European consumer protection has reached another important milestone. The European Parliament had already decided to prohibit geoblocking in relation to streaming services, meaning that a service may no longer be made unavailable to a consumer merely because that consumer is physically located in a different Member State from the service provider. Consumers therefore no longer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":55521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t