Chapter 15 - Information requirements overload? Assessing disclosure duties under the E-commerce Directive, Services Directive and Consumer Directive

This chapter focuses on information requirements in the context of e-commerce.
It considers the Consumer Directive 2011/83 that recently replaced Directive 97/7 on distance selling. In between, two other directives were enacted and are discussed in this chapter: Directive 2000/31 on E-commerce and the Services Directive 2006/123.
In this chapter Directives are discussed, not national law. It is true that Directives need to be implemented by Member States before becoming effective. However, Directives are the source of all the national regulations based upon them. Moreover, the European case law interprets the text of Directives. Merely for illustration purposes, national examples are used in this chapter, primarily from Dutch law. The directives have a different focus, but all three apply to the situation where a professional website offers services or products to a consumer, so this chapter focuses on that situation.
The chapter is structured as follows. First, the three directives central to this chapter are briefly introduced. Subsequently, the relevant articles concerning information on the name of the provider as well as contact details, are discussed. Attention is paid to ‘What’, ‘How’, ‘When’, and sanctions (‘what if not’). Next, information requirements regarding placing of the order, essentials, terms and payment are briefly discussed. The chapter ends with a glimpse of the future when discussing Internet accessed via small devices (phones, tablets), and concludes with an evaluation of what all the information accomplishes, including suggestions for improvement.