Legal Regulation Prohibition of geo-blocking to Create a Single Digital Market of the European Union

Abstract

The article examines the legal regulation in the EU the ban on unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination due to citizenship, location or the place of establishment as the obstacles to create a single digital EU market. The aim of the research is to identify the special features and trends. The methods applied were both general and special legal methods, i.e. legal historical, formal legal, comparative methods, the method of legal forecasting. The EU faces new challenges influencing its achievement one of which is digitalization. To increase the efficiency of the legal regulation of the internal market the permanent evolution of is required by spreading the integration various areas of digitalization. Hence, the EU internal market started including a single digital market, one of the pillars of which is the access of the buyers to the goods and services of electronic trade. The commission declared a number of issues to implement the EU competition law one of which is geo-blocking. The article defines the key concepts of the legal relations under research. The unjustified geo-blocking is a discriminating practice impeding the access and acquisition of the goods and services via web-sites located in another EU member state. The geo-blocking is considered as a material obstacle to implement the fundamental freedoms and/or as a material violation of competition. The result of the consistent actions of the EU institutions was the act on harmonizing legislations — Rules N2018/302 on counteracting unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discriminating buyers due to citizenship, permanent address and the place of office. The essence of the Rules is the ban on the direct and indirect discrimination of buyers against the access to online-interfaces of electronic trade, goods and services, conditions of payment, agreements on passive sales. The rules provide for several grounds under which the distinct attitude towards sellers due to citizenship, the place of residence and office may be justified. The actions of the EU institutions promote to fixing stricter requirements against sellers and providers. To fulfil the potential of the internal market the obstacles should be removed, in particular geo-blocking.