Techno File: Consumer law pledge

THE European Commission wants to create a new, pan-European contract law that would run in parallel to national laws and would be aimed at increasing cross-border trade within the EU. It has also vowed to press ahead with controversial consumer law plans.

Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, has outlined her plans for her term in office, including some major changes to the law to govern cross-border distance selling.

She said: "There are still far too many cross-border problems that prevent businesses and citizens from benefiting from the single market."

Reding suggested that instead of creating a new pan-EU law, the Commission could ensure that the laws of the 27 member states agreed on certain important points of consumer contract law.

Google to appeal

&149 AN ITALIAN court has convicted three Google executives of violations of the country's privacy code, handing them a six-month suspended prison sentence over a video hosted on the site which shows an autistic child being bullied.

The ruling threatens to undermine the safe harbour usually enjoyed by companies such as Google, who under EU law are not held responsible for content they did not create.

Turin school pupils filmed bullying of an autistic schoolmate and posted the video on YouTube. Google said it removed the video "within hours" of it appearing and helped police to identify the person who uploaded it, but four current and former Google executives were charged by Italian prosecutors with defamation and invasion of privacy over the fact that the video was hosted at all.

The EU's E-Commerce Directive protects service providers from liability for material that they neither create nor monitor but simply store or pass on to users. The Italian ruling could threaten the operation of that exemption.

Service providers are not exempt unless they act to remove illegal material once they are made aware of it. They also can lose exemption if they monitor content.

Google does not monitor YouTube content but responds to complaints. The case against the executives argued that the company did not have enough staff to properly monitor videos.

Google said that it would appeal the ruling.

The price isn't right

RETAILERS whose prices fluctuate with demand and with competitors' prices should not use printed brochures to advertise, according to the UK's advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has reprimanded online electronics retailer Dabs.com for an incorrect price in one of its printed brochures after it investigated a customer complaint that a laptop computer was not available at the price advertised by Dabs.com.

While part of the inaccuracy was an error, part of it was due to the fact underlying price had changed. Dabs.com told the ASA it had to keep changing its prices because of the nature of the online electronics retail market.

The ASA ruling said: "We considered consumers would expect an advertised price to be correct at the time they saw an ad; it should reflect the price at which the laptop was sold while the ad was in circulation."