EU-kommisjonen lanserte tirsdag 5. mai 2009 sin eYou-guide som er ment som en veiledning om hvilke “digitale rettigheter” forbrukerne har. Man finner eYou-guiden her.

Samtidig presenterte kommisjonen en 8-punkts “Digital Agenda” for Consumer Rights Tomorrow, som angir åtte områder kommisjonen vil arbeide med på dette området. Dette er:

1. Combating spam with similarly effective civil and criminal sanctions in all EU Member States and neighbouring countries. A “ban on spam” has been part of EU law since 2003, but 65% of Europeans still complain about “excessive spam”. While 19.8% of spam globally comes from the US and 9.9% from China, 23.4% comes from Europe with Italy (3%), Spain (2.9%), UK (2.7%) and Germany (2.4%) among the “Top 12”. To this, add the EU’s neighbours Turkey (4.4%) and Russia (6.4%).

2. Ensuring that from for consumers, it does not matter which EU country digital content (music, games, films, books) comes from, by paving the way for multi-territorial licensing regimes for online content.

3. Giving consumers certainty about what they can and cannot do with copy­righted songs, videos and films they download, by ending the current fragmentation of laws on “private copying”.

4. Extending the principles of consumer protection rules to cover licensing agreements of products like software downloaded for virus protection, games or other licensed content. Licensing should guarantee consumers the same basic rights as when they purchase a good: the right to get a product that works with fair commercial conditions.

5. Guarantee that privacy policies linked to online offers are properly disclosed and have fair contract terms.

6. Tackling fragmented and incomplete rules on e-accessibility to make it easier for disabled people (15% of the EU population) to use websites, electronic payments and other online services.

7. Explore opportunities to strengthen confidence in online payments, including successful models such as credit card charge back schemes that allow customers to cancel payments to non compliant traders as a last resort.

8. Working with industry and consumer associations to set up a European system of trustmarks for retail websites that comply with best practices.

Selv merker jeg meg med en viss intresse pkt. 4 på denne listen. I en utredning jeg gjorde for Justisdepartementet for noen år siden foreslo jeg omtrent dette, ved at Forbrukerkjøpslovens regler også skulle gjelde for digitale ytelser der de passer. Men Justisdepartementet bestemte seg for at de ikke ville fremme et slikt forslag for Stortinget, så det har til nå ikke blitt noe av. Så i stedet for å være et foregangsland på dette området vil Norge kanskje komme diltende etter når man har bestemt seg i Brussel, slik man pleier å gjøre.

Gå hit for mer informasjon om det EU-kommisjonen har presentert.