However, the Commission sees ‘many obstacles preventing consumers and businesses from investing fully in online services: ignorance or uncertainty about the applicable rules, offers that lack transparency and are hard to compare, and payments and modes of delivery that are often expensive and unsuitable.’

The action plan intends to ‘facilitate cross-border access to online products and content, ultimately solving the problems of payment, delivery and consumer protection and information, and assist dispute resolution and the removal of illegal content, thus helping to develop an Internet that is more secure and more respectful of fundamental rights and freedoms.’

In the meantime, Members of the European Parliament, have voiced their concern that negotiations currently held by the Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection will result in a negative impact on E-Commerce. These negotiations deal with product piracy and could result in stricter customs measures, such as increasing the destruction of trading goods of dubious origin.