How our personal data is stolen from individual online stores.

The conditions of the economic crisis make consumers more prone to misleading offers and free provision of services and products or benefits where the consideration is sensitive personal data

Το 35% of the reports handled by the Independent Authority "Consumer Advocate"In 2018, it concerned remote transactions, noted the Deputy Consumer Ombudsman Dr. Athena Kontogianni, in her speech today at the conference Athens InfoLaw Conference Law, Internet and Social Media ", which is carried out by the legal website LAWSPOT and the European Union of Young Lawyers of Greece (ELSA Greece) at the War Museum.

As the lady said Kontogianni: "The conditions of the financial crisis make consumers more prone to misleading offers and the free provision of services and products or benefits where the exchange is sensitive personal data. Vulnerable consumers decide very easily, in order to obtain a free sample of a product or a trial service or even a discount, to disclose to companies their mobile phone number, their e-mail, etc. or to unconditionally consent to the receipt of commercial promotions of any kind, without realizing that they have paid dearly for the "gift" or discount. And of course, then they are bombarded, with or without human intervention by promotional calls, messages and spamming mails. Τουν discover after consuming the gift that they have been bound by burdensome and long-term service contracts».

These, she continued, are some of the data of the Digital Single Market from which it appears that it is necessary to modernize the legislation for consumer protection, in order to keep the level of protection high.

He then cited examples from the experience of consumer reports to the Consumer Ombudsman and the European Consumer Center of Greece, which identify gaps in consumer protection from massive unfair online shopping practices, especially through social media.

Example

As he said, in 2018 and 2019 the Consumer Ombudsman and the European Consumer Center of Greece received consumer reports for individual online stores that either do not deliver the ordered product or deliberately deliver products, without the agreed properties, e.g. shoes in a different number from the one ordered, so when the consumer returns them to receive the product of his choice, he eventually loses both the money he paid (unless the transaction dispute process succeeds) and the product.

It is common practice in these cases to relocate the online store, after 6 months -1 year of operation, to another Member State, most often to neighboring Balkan countries, where checks on unfair commercial practices are not always intensive. Ή its renaming and registration in GEMI under a new name, but with the same headquarters, the same telephone or the same legal representative, in order to continue the illegal commercial activity, with a limited risk of association between the two companies.

In some cases, the products are sold through websites, but in most cases, through social media (especially Facebook and Instagram).

She also went on to say that some of the transactions involved products that appeared to be genuine from the photos shown, were offered at very attractive prices and, in the end, were either not delivered at all or consumers received low quality imitation products.

The Deputy Consumer Ombudsman noted that, apart from trafficking, these e-shops or profiles did not meet the information requirements of Law 2251/1994 or the Consumer Code of Ethics for E-Commerce which stipulate that the website must indicate the identity of the supplier (name), its geographical address, contact telephone, e-mail address, VAT number, GEMI registration number if it is based in Greece, essential information regarding the characteristics of the product, the consumer's burden and basic information about its commercial policy (shipping costs, additional charges, taxes and fees, etc.), as well as reference to the right of withdrawal.

"So," she said, "they were not doing business legally, and when the problems arose, consumers who tried to contact the online store to complain found that their social media accounts were deactivated and they could not communicate due to lack of other information."

Regarding consumer protection, Ms. Kontogianni noted: "In this case, the provisions on illegal and unfair commercial practices that provide for the cessation of the practice and its omission in the future do not offer adequate protection at extrajudicial level and outside criminal proceedings: Law 2251/1994 provides consumers affected by unfair commercial practice to seek individually or jointly the judicial cessation of the practice, its omission in the future and the award of compensation for damage caused due to it.

There are also a number of administrative sanctions and measures that can be imposed, with no hasty procedures, by the Ministry of Economy and Development. In practice, however, even if the business is shut down, either the website and its profile remain active or it returns with a new profile and a new website. In fact, if it is a company based in another EU member state. it is not possible to apply the above provisions of law 2251/1994 either, but a time-consuming cross-border cooperation must be done with dubious results ".

Stricter legislation from 2020

In order to deal more effectively with the cases mentioned above, the contribution of the new Regulation 2017/2394 on cooperation between the national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection legislation is expected to be implemented, which will be implemented by on January 17, 2020. This is because it established, in Article 9, minimum possibilities for research and minimum possibilities for the enforcement of consumer legislation by the competent authorities (in Greece the General Secretariat for Trade and Consumer Protection is responsible) for:

Γωγή Carrying out on-site inspections, mystery shopping, data collection (eg financial flows, data flows, website owners and other legally responsible persons) by credit institutions, telecommunications operators, registrars, hosting providers and the like public or private bodies in order to establish a violation of consumer legislation. Also the confiscation of necessary documents and data from the places of professional activity of the offenders, in compliance with the relevant terms of Greek law.

Imposition of sanctions, such as fines, but also commitments for the future compliance of traders.

Effective cessation and omission in the future of all kinds of practices that violate consumer legislation. Particularly innovative is the provision that, where there are no other effective means of achieving the cessation or prohibition of the infringement covered by this Regulation and in order to avoid the risk of serious harm to the collective interests of consumers, the competent authorities may delete content from an online interface or order explicitly warning consumers when accessing the online interface as a temporary measure to protect the collective interests of consumers, but also order registrars or domain registers to delete a fully approved domain name and allow the competent authority concerned to make such a notification, inter alia, by requesting a third party or other public authority to implement these measures.

Therefore, the competent administrative authority of each Member State has the power, in an extreme version, under the principle of proportionality in the light of the need to protect the collective interests of consumers, to order another body, public or private, to take action to "download" any kind of software that works as an online store. However, given that there will be national specialization measures of the Regulation, we are expected to see how the Ministry of Economy and Development will organize the implementation of the provision.

ΠαραπάνωThe above minimum responsibilities, both research and enforcement responsibilities, can be exercised either by the competent administrative authorities under their own responsibility, or by appealing to other authorities or by transmitting orders to authorized bodies, e.g. inspectors-auditors, or even at the request of the judicial authorities (Rule 10).

The above-mentioned sanctions do not only apply to e-commerce, but also apply to any material breach of consumer law. In practice, they strengthen the arsenal of administrative sanctions and administrative measures of Law 2251/1994, which, as mentioned above, did not provide such broad powers at extrajudicial level. And, of course, they cover gaps that have emerged through the digital single market: Mainly the issue of cross-border breaches, where Regulation 2017/2394 establishes, inter alia, the exchange of information through the issuance of warnings, scans, coordinated actions between Member States.

In order to enhance the effectiveness of the intervention, the compliance to which they have been called by the EU is considered particularly important. the social networking platforms Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to protect consumers from online scams and unfair online shop behaviors. The Commission has called for the "reporting and action mechanism" used by national consumer protection authorities to detect illegal content to be activated and for social media platforms to respond immediately.

Although Google+ implements a protocol with deadlines for processing requests, Facebook and Twitter are simply providing the national authorities with an email address so that they can be notified of any breaches without having to commit to a specific time frame. to process the relevant requests. However, under the new Regulation 2017/2394, bodies that can be ordered by the competent supervisory authorities to remove or delete content if there is no other effective measure, can also be considered social networking platforms.

Therefore, when the Regulation enters into force, the immediate deletion of the specific profiles from Facebook can be requested, as well as e-shops that apply misleading practices regarding payments from consumers, sale of counterfeit products and fraudulent offers and subscription traps without subscription. consumer information and consent (which has already provoked several reactions).

Source