§2.4 Products sold through online marketplaces

An online marketplace is a type of e-commerce service where products are offered for sale by multiple economic operators (20). It allows economic operators on the one side, and end-users on the other side, to conclude sales transactions of products. Article 4 applies to products sold through online marketplaces. It places no specific obligation on the online marketplaces where they are merely providing intermediary services to third-party sellers and fall within the scope of Article 2(b) of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (21). In the situation where an online marketplace intermediates the offer for sale to the EU end-users of a product covered by Article 4 for which there is no economic operator referred to in Article 4 (22) and obtains actual knowledge or awareness of illegal content (e.g. by means of a sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated notice from a market surveillance authority), that online marketplace can only rely on the liability exemption lad down in Article 14(1) of Directive 2000/31/EC, if upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, it acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the illegal content in question. Where an online marketplace is also a manufacturer, importer, authorised representative or fulfilment service provider, it could be the economic operator referred to in Article 4.

← 2.3 · All articles · 3 →

Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07