Ensuring the cross-border portability of online content services in the internal market

Key points:

The EESC:

• welcomes the Commission's initiative to address "cross-border portability" through a regulation;

• considers it necessary for a subscriber's "Member State of residence" to be clearly defined in order to ensure that the other Member States can be identified by default as countries where the subscriber is temporarily present;

• considers that where users qualify as customers or subscribers to a service and are shown to be linked to a Member State and identified by their IP address or internet connection or other equivalent indicator, this should ensure cross-border portability;

• believes that the portability of these services should be guaranteed if the Member State is "verifiable", provided that it can be verified without incurring additional costs for the provider;
• considers that legal provisions should explicitly state that any loss or deterioration in delivery affecting the range of services available, accessibility on devices and the number of users would constitute non-compliance.

Other relevant EESC opinions:

• Upgrading the Single Market (INT/773) ongoing
• Modernisation of copyright rules  (INT/774) ongoing
• Digital contract rights (INT/775) ongoing
• Digital Single Markt Strategy (TEN/574) ongoing

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat