Slashdot Mirror
eBay Urges Rethink On EU Plan's "Brick and Mortar" Vendor Requirement
mernil writes with this snippet from Reuters: "According to a draft regulation drawn up by the European Commission and seen by Reuters, suppliers may be allowed to require that distributors have a 'brick-and-mortar' shop before they can sell online. The proposed rules would replace existing guidelines exempting companies from strict EU competition rules under certain circumstances. Those rules expire at the end of May."
Living in a EU country and while lately I've been happy with EU's decisions, this is just bullshit. Not just because of eBay, but because there are several online stores in my country too that only have a website and warehouse. This includes the online stores that sell at lower price than you can find in stores and specialized stores like funny items and hot spices, hot sauces and specialized stores that import oversears and sell here.
Some of the items you can't just on normal stores. This is bullshit.
If you owned a mom-and-pop store, I think that you would see it as a good idea.
And if you owned a mom-and-pop online store, I think you would see it as a horrible idea.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
As a EU citizen, I expect Commission will soon figure they did something _really_ stupid _again_. Therefore, next provision will enable *SOME* shops (enumerated in 1200 pages book) to remain online-only. For enumerating all privileged online shops and nagotieting per-member country number, European Online Retail Agency will be established (EORA) in, say, Rome, with huge building and army of translators and other staff.
839*929