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Following dialogues with the Commission and the network of national consumer protection (CPC) authorities, multinational e-commerce business Shopify has committed to making several improvements to make shopping safer for customers, bringing it in line with EU rules. The dialogue first originated following the receipt of numerous complaints, which peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic, through the European Consumer Centres. The complaints mainly related to web stores hosted by the platform, found to have engaged in illegal practices, such as making fake offers and fake scarcity claims, supplying counterfeit goods or not providing their contact details. The Commission, together with the CPC, and led by Belgium’s Directorate General for Economic Inspection, launched a dialogue with Shopify in July 2021, aimed at introducing changes to address the illegal practices of traders in its platform. Shopify has now committed to create a fast and effective ‘notice and action’ procedure for national consumer authorities and to change its templates to push traders to be more transparent towards consumers.

Following dialogues with the Commission and national consumer protection authorities, 16 major airlines have committed to better information and timely reimbursement of passengers in case of flight cancellations. The Commission had alerted the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) enforcement authorities in December 2020 to address several airlines’ cancellation and reimbursement practices in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, the European Commission and national consumer protection authorities published the results of an EU-wide screening of 118 websites offering consumer credit online. More than one-third (36%) of the screened websites were found to be in potential breach of the EU consumer law. Key information such as the cost of credit, interest rates or the existence of compulsory insurance were either missing or unclear. The method used by some lending websites to assess consumers’ capacity to repay their loan, the so-called creditworthiness, was not clear either.

The European Commission announced yesterday that Booking.com and the Expedia Group have improved the presentation of their accommodation offers, aligning it with EU consumer law. The changes followed close dialogue with the European Commission and EU consumer authorities and concern information on promotional offers an

European Parliament calls for greater efforts to remove unsafe products from the EU market and to adapt product safety rules to the digital age. The resolution on product safety in the Single Market was adopted on Wednesday with 688 in favour (eight against and one abstention).