New Geo-blocking EU Regulation applies from 3 December 2018

The Regulation (EU) 2018/302 is meant to prevent discrimination based on customers' nationality, place of residence or place of establishment, including unjustified geo-blocking, in cross-border transactions between a trader and a customer relating to the sales of goods and the provision of services within the EU.

According to the Regulation, geo-blocking is a practice that occurs where traders operating in one Member State block or limit access to their online interfaces, such as websites and apps, by customers from other Member States wishing to engage in cross-border transactions. For example, a Romanian customer intends to buy a laptop and finds a good deal on a trader’s Polish domain of the website. The customer cannot access the trader’s Polish shop but is automatically re-routed (based on the IP address) to the Romanian shop of the trader, where the same laptop is available at a significantly higher price.

Once the Regulation becomes applicable, such practices will no longer be allowed. In the above example, the Romanian customer may be redirected to the Romanian website of the trader, only based on the customer’s explicit consent to such redirection or because of a specific legal obligation upon the trader to do so. If redirected based on the customer’s explicit consent, the version of the trader's online interface to which the customer initially sought access (Polish one in this case) shall remain easily accessible to that customer.

The Regulation is applicable to all traders (regardless of whether they are established in a Member State or in a third country) provided that they are selling products/services to customers in the EU, but it does not apply in certain sectors, such as: transport services, financial services and audiovisual services (including music streaming and e-books).

The sanctions for infringements of the Regulation will be determined by each Member State. In Romania, the National Authority for Consumer Protection (which will probably act as body responsible for the enforcement) has released a bill for the implementation of the Regulation, according to which the fines for non-compliance can go up to Lei 50,000.

A useful guideline on the matter was released by the European Commission and is available in multiple languages here: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/geo-blocking-regulation-questions-and-answers.