Consumers’ lifestyles are increasingly connected and borders are less and less relevant when shopping online for goods and services. While a fully-fledged Digital Single Market (DSM) must aim at boosting innovation and job creation throughout the EU, it must also ensure that consumers can benefit from the gains in a safe and secure way.
Consumer protection needs to be brought into the digital age. Between the entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the recent European Commission’s proposal for a New Deal for Consumers, this year has been rich in developments. How much remains to be done?
- With still half of the EU’s Digital Single Market strategy to be completed by May 2019, how much harmonization has been achieved, to what benefit? What are the bottlenecks and what will be left to the next legislature?
- What are the main barriers left? What is the impact of the remaining regulatory walls on consumers? Are they creating winners and losers?
- European legislation is only now catching up with e-commerce, is consumer law fit for emerging issues such as blockchain or artificial intelligence? How can these new technologies be part of the answer?
- What are companies doing to protect consumers online and what could they do better?