eCommerce Directive

Article 3

Internal market

1. Each Member State shall ensure that the information society services provided by a service provider established on its territory comply with the national provisions applicable in the Member State in question which fall within the coordinated field.

2. Member States may not, for reasons falling within the coordinated field, restrict the freedom to provide information society services from another Member State.

3. Paragraphs 1 and 2 shall not apply to the fields referred to in the Annex.

4. Member States may take measures to derogate from paragraph 2 in respect of a given information society service if the following conditions are fulfilled:

\- public policy, in particular the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, including the protection of minors and the fight against any incitement to hatred on grounds of race, sex, religion or nationality, and violations of human dignity concerning individual persons,

\- the protection of public health,

\- public security, including the safeguarding of national security and defence,

\- the protection of consumers, including investors;

\- asked the Member State referred to in paragraph 1 to take measures and the latter did not take such measures, or they were inadequate,

\- notified the Commission and the Member State referred to in paragraph 1 of its intention to take such measures.

5. Member States may, in the case of urgency, derogate from the conditions stipulated in paragraph 4(b). Where this is the case, the measures shall be notified in the shortest possible time to the Commission and to the Member State referred to in paragraph 1, indicating the reasons for which the Member State considers that there is urgency.

6. Without prejudice to the Member State's possibility of proceeding with the measures in question, the Commission shall examine the compatibility of the notified measures with Community law in the shortest possible time; where it comes to the conclusion that the measure is incompatible with Community law, the Commission shall ask the Member State in question to refrain from taking any proposed measures or urgently to put an end to the measures in question.

CHAPTER II

PRINCIPLES

Section 1: Establishment and information requirements

Holdings

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C-115/2411 Sept 2025

UJ v Österreichische Zahnärztekammer

1. Article 3(d) and (e) of Directive 2011/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011 on the application of patients' rights in cross-border healthcare

must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of cross-border healthcare provided in the case of telemedicine, for the purposes of that article, corresponds solely to healthcare provided, exclusively via information and communication technologies, to a patient by a healthcare provider established in a Member State other than that patient's Member State of affiliation, at a distance and therefore without that patient and that provider being simultaneously physically present in the same location.

C-115/2411 Sept 2025

UJ v Österreichische Zahnärztekammer

2. Article 3(d) of Directive 2011/24

must be interpreted as applying to all the fields governed by that directive and not only to the reimbursement of the costs of cross-border healthcare referred to in Article 7 of that directive.

C-115/2411 Sept 2025

UJ v Österreichische Zahnärztekammer

3. Article 3(d) of Directive 2011/24 and Article 3(1) of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce'),

must be interpreted as meaning that telemedicine services must be provided in accordance with the legislation of the Member State where the provider is established.

C-517/2327 Feb 2025

Apothekerkammer Nordrhein v DocMorris NV

1. Article 86(1) of Directive 2001/83/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 November 2001 on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use, as amended by Directive 2011/62/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011,

must be interpreted as meaning:

- the concept of 'advertising of medicinal products', within the meaning of that provision, does not cover advertising measures that promote the purchase of unspecified prescription-only medicinal products by offering price reductions and payments;

- that concept covers advertising measures that promote the purchase of unspecified prescription-only medicinal products by offering promotional gifts in the form of vouchers for the subsequent purchase of non-prescription medicinal products.

Article 34 TFEU and Article 3(4)(a) of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce'),

must be interpreted as not precluding a national rule which, in order to protect consumers, prohibits an advertising measure by which a pharmacy established in another Member State offers its customers, in return for sending in their medical prescription and participating in a medication check, a monetary reward, without it being possible to know the exact amount of that reward.

C-662/2230 May 2024

Airbnb Ireland UC and Amazon Services Europe Sàrl v Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni

Article 3 of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce')

must be interpreted as precluding measures adopted by a Member State, with the stated aim of ensuring the adequate and effective enforcement of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services, under which, on pain of penalties, providers of online intermediation services established in another Member State are subject, with a view to providing their services in the first Member State, to the obligation to be entered in a register maintained by an authority of that Member State, to communicate to that authority certain detailed information about their organisation and to pay a financial contribution to that authority.

C-664/2230 May 2024

Google Ireland Ltd and Eg Vacation Rentals Ireland Ltd v Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni

Article 3 of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce')

must be interpreted as precluding measures adopted by a Member State, with the stated aim of ensuring the adequate and effective enforcement of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services, under which, on pain of penalties, providers of online intermediation services and online search engines established in another Member State are subject, with a view to providing their services in the first Member State, to the obligation to be entered in a register maintained by an authority of that Member State, to communicate to that authority certain detailed information about their organisation and to pay a financial contribution to that authority.

C-665/2230 May 2024

Amazon Services Europe Sàrl v Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni

Article 3 of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market ('Directive on electronic commerce')

must be interpreted as precluding measures adopted by a Member State, with the stated aim of ensuring the adequate and effective enforcement of Regulation (EU) 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services, under which, on pain of penalties, providers of online intermediation services established in another Member State are subject, with a view to providing their services in the first Member State, to the obligation to send periodically to an authority of that Member State a document relating to their economic situation, in which it is necessary to set out a large amount of information relating, in particular, to the revenues of the service provider.

C-376/229 Nov 2023

Google Ireland Limited and Others v Kommunikationsbehörde Austria (Komm Austria)

Article 3(4) of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market

must be interpreted as meaning that general and abstract measures aimed at a category of given information society services described in general terms and applying without distinction to any provider of that category of services do not fall within the concept of measures taken against a 'given information society service' within the meaning of that provision.

C-682/1822 Jun 2021

Frank Peterson v Google LLC and Others and Elsevier Inc.v Cyando AG

1. Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society must be interpreted as meaning that the operator of a video-sharing platform or a file-hosting and -sharing platform, on which users can illegally make protected content available to the public, does not make a 'communication to the public' of that content, within the meaning of that provision, unless it contributes, beyond merely making that platform available, to giving access to such content to the public in breach of copyright. That is the case, inter alia, where that operator has specific knowledge that protected content is available illegally on its platform and refrains from expeditiously deleting it or blocking access to it, or where that operator, despite the fact that it knows or ought to know, in a general sense, that users of its platform are making protected content available to the public illegally via its platform, refrains from putting in place the appropriate technological measures that can be expected from a reasonably diligent operator in its situation in order to counter credibly and effectively copyright infringements on that platform, or where that operator participates in selecting protected content illegally communicated to the public, provides tools on its platform specifically intended for the illegal sharing of such content or knowingly promotes such sharing, which may be attested by the fact that that operator has adopted a financial model that encourages users of its platform illegally to communicate protected content to the public via that platform.

C-62/193 Dec 2020

Star Taxi App SRL v Unitatea Administrativ Teritorială Municipiul Bucureşti prin Primar General and Consiliul General al Municipiului Bucureşti

3. Article 56 TFEU, Article 3(2) and (4) of Directive 2000/31, and Article 16 of Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 on services in the internal market, must be interpreted as not applying to a dispute in which all the relevant elements are confined to a single Member State.

Article 4 of Directive 2000/31 must be interpreted as not applying to regulations of a Member State which makes the provision of an intermediation service, the purpose of which is to put persons wishing to make urban journeys in touch, by means of a smartphone application and in exchange for remuneration, with authorised taxi drivers, and which is classified as an 'information society service' within the meaning of Article 2(a) of Directive 2000/31, which refers to Article 1(1)(b) of Directive 2015/1535, subject to obtaining prior authorisation, which is already applicable to other taxi reservation service providers.

Articles 9 and 10 of Directive 2006/123 must be interpreted as precluding regulations of a Member State which make the provision of an intermediation service, the purpose of which is to put persons wishing to make urban journeys in touch, by means of a smartphone application and in exchange for remuneration, with authorised taxi drivers, subject to obtaining prior authorisation to pursue their activity, where the conditions for obtaining the authorisation do not meet the requirements laid down in those articles, in that they impose, inter alia, technical requirements that are inappropriate for the service in question, which is a matter for the referring court to ascertain.

C-390/1819 Dec 2019

Criminal proceedings against X

2. The second indent of Article 3(4)(b) of Directive 2000/31 must be interpreted as meaning that, in criminal proceedings with an ancillary civil action, an individual may oppose the application to him or her of measures of a Member State restricting the freedom to provide an information society service which that individual provides from another Member State, where those measures were not notified in accordance with that provision.

C-292/1015 Mar 2012

G v Cornelius de Visser

4. Article 3(1) and (2) of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market does not apply to a situation where the place of establishment of the information society services provider is unknown, since application of that provision is subject to identification of the Member State in whose territory the service provider in question is actually established.