European Union mandates online store label

Written by Jelmer van der Linden on April 01, 2017

UPDATE: This was an April 1 joke, the EU is not yet going to make trustmarks mandatory. Next month the European Parliament will probably adopt new legislation that will make membership of a trustmark mandatory. Webshops that have not yet joined a trustmark will be obliged to do so. The new legislation comes in response to many abuses of online stores. The European Commission opts for private enforcement from the market. The European Commission believes that trustmarks have shown that they perform their tasks well and therefore sees no need for public enforcement by the government.

'more and more people are doing their shopping and ordering online, it is important that they are sure that the online store where they buy their products can be trusted. For this reason, from July 2018 we want to make it compulsory to become a member of a web store hallmark. Thereby, we have identified some trustmarks that meet the quality standards we set. Together with these trustmarks we want to make sure that shopping on the Internet is safe.'

The screening by the European Union has shown thatStichting WebwinkelKeurmeets the required quality standards. In this blog we discuss what this means in practice for our current and future members.

Private enforcement of rules

Although the European Union wants to refrain from public enforcement by the government, there will be more focus on private enforcement by existing trustmarks. That is why the European Union has developed strict conditions for every organization that issues a trustmark. Stichting WebwinkelKeur has also passed a similar screening. This screening has shown that the trustmark meets the legal requirements and Stichting WebwinkelKeur will annually evaluate whether a member still meets all legal requirements. If a member does not meet the requirements, they have up to five working days to ensure that they do meet the requirements. Should this not be the case after these five days a warning will follow. If there is no response to the warning, the membership of the store will be revoked.

Registration at startup of webshop

To ensure that webshops are aware of the rules and comply with them right from the start, it was decided to choose a quality mark when registering with the Chamber of Commerce. One of the existing labels can be chosen. Thus, the obligation for each starting entrepreneur immediately clear and there will be no more webshops in circulation that do not comply with legislation. [caption id="attachment_64124" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Het pakket aan maatregelen bestaat uit 3 compontenten

Het pakket aan maatregelen bestaat uit 3 compontenten

The package of measures consists of 3 components[/caption]

More rules in the works

The new rules are part of a new policy which consists of 3 components. Part one is financial measures, or more fines for online stores that do not comply with rules. The second part is making online store labels mandatory. The third part is plans for a parcel tax where the merchant has to pay a small amount per parcel. These rules all fall under the Fight Online Poluting policy, with this FOP policy the European Union wants to reduce the pollution of the Internet in both the literal and figurative sense. We will of course keep you updated on these developments.