The Federal Court of Justice: Amazon retailers are not responsible for customer reviews.
Kinesiological tapes must not be advertised with health-related statements since the benefits for the body have not been scientifically proven. In general, advertising with such statements is strictly regulated by the Federal Court of Justice because customers should not fall for false healing promises.
But what if the customer is convinced of the effect and expresses this conviction in reviews? If the association chooses to do so, the dealer is liable. The Federal Court of Justice sees it differently: In the specific case, a dealer offered kinesiology tapes on Amazon. In the reviews, one could often read about the pain-relieving effect.
However, the retailer does not have to be liable for this, because the reviews are not advertising in the opinion of the Federal Court of Justice. On Amazon, reviews and offers are visually separated. Therefore, the retailer does not adopt the statements of its customers as its own and therefore does not have to be responsible for their content.
Destruction of returned items: Federal cabinet decides to ban
Is online trading equal to climate sinners? Politicians have been dealing with this question since the beginning of the year. It is about the destruction of returned items, which is a problem and, according to the prevailing opinion, must be prohibited. The federal cabinet passed a corresponding law in February.
A so-called duty of care is enshrined in the bill. This means that the retailer should ensure that return items can continue to be used instead of ending up in the garbage. Next, the Bundestag will discuss the law.
Black Friday brand will not be deleted – with exceptions.
Am I allowed or not? All retailers ask themselves this question every year. It’s about using the term Black Friday. This has been protected by trademark law since 2013.
Now the Federal Patent Court has ensured clarity: the brand remains mostly intact. However, the deletion was confirmed for the area of advertising services and commercial services with electrical and electronic goods.
The background to this is that the term was not yet known as a synonym for the discount battle at the time the it was registered. In the field of electrical and electronic goods, however, the term has always come up again and again.
Great Britain: Bye bye, GDPR
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced earlier this month: “We will restore full sovereign control over our borders, immigration, competition, subsidy rules, procurement and data protection.” Brexit will also mean a farewell to the GDPR. Johnson wants to create their own data protection regulations. From 2021 onwards, data exchange between the EU and Great Britain could become difficult.
Guide: How to land your shop in jail
In the current background article of the Online Dealer News portal, the topic of illegality was examined somewhat differently: The question was what an online retailer actually has to do to end up in prison.
Marco M. Runge was resident payment expert and PR & Marketing Manager at full service payment provider Novalnet. With a decade of industry expertise he is fully committed to e-commerce and payment topics.