Illegal Products

The regulation on a single market for digital services or digital services act  proposed by the European Commission in 2020 would extend the scope of potential violations for spreading illegal content to include illegal products.Though not yet clearly defined, these products would likely fall into two categories: goods that infringe intellectual property rights, such as counterfeit and pirated articles; and dangerous or non-legally compliant goods, such as endangered species or explosives.

To date, online trade in these areas has been managed through a process of “self-regulation” similar to the ones that already govern Internet activities in problem places such as hate speech and the fight against terrorism. As regards illegal goods, two multistakeholder agreements sit at the centre of the system:

There is also a well-developed legal infrastructure for dealing with trade in illegal products, including the general product safety directive (2001), the regulation concerning the export and import of hazardous chemicals (2012), the directive on combating terrorism (2017) and the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES).

But despite this plethora of initiatives, there is still no standard definition for what does or does not constitute a “counterfeit” or “pirated” good in the EU. The regulation on customs enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) infringements, for one, defines counterfeit goods as goods that infringe on trademark or geographical indications. But in other agreements to which the EU is signatory and which the EU routinely uses as a basis for its own rulemaking, such as the World Trade Organisation agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), counterfeit goods are defined as goods that infringe on trademarks only. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union Intellectual Property Office have an even broader definition. In Trends in Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods, the OECD and EUIPO include in the definition of counterfeit “goods that infringe trademarks, design rights or patents.”


 

Records 41 - 47 of 47


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The Impact of CO2e (in grams) for Physical Retail and E-commerce for Books

The chart presents the impact of CO2 equivalent (in grams) between e-commerce and in-store shopping for books retail, in eigth European countries. Data are based on the results of the economic and environmental impact study "Is E-commerce Good for Europe?" led Oliver Wyman in 2020. The results show that, on average, the CO2e impact of in-store shopping is 3.7 times higher than the online option.
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The Impact of CO2e (in grams) for Physical Retail and E-commerce for Consumer Electronics

The chart presents the impact of CO2 equivalent (in grams) between e-commerce and in-store shopping for consumer electronics retail, in eigth European countries. Data are based on the results of the economic and environmental impact study "Is E-commerce Good for Europe?" led Oliver Wyman in 2020. The results show that, on average at national level, the CO2e impact of in-store shopping is 3.5 times higher than the online option.
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The Impact of CO2e (in grams) for Physical Retail and E-commerce for Fashion Retail

The chart presents the impact of CO2 equivalent (in grams) between e-commerce and in-store shopping for fashion retail, in eigth European countries. Data are based on the results of the economic and environmental impact study "Is E-commerce Good for Europe?" led Oliver Wyman in 2020. The results show that, on average, the CO2e impact of in-store shopping is five times higher than the online option.
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The Number of E-commerce Jobs Created (2008-2018)

The chart presents the number of e-commerce jobs created over the period 2008-2018, in eigth European countries. Data are based on the results of the economic and environmental impact study "Is E-commerce Good for Europe?" led Oliver Wyman in 2020. Between 2008 and 2018, 1.3 million net direct retail jobs were created in the eight countries, out of which over 300,000 jobs were created by e-commerce retailers.
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The Proportion of Preventable Non-Fatal Product-Related Injuries To Total Non-Fatal Injuries (2013-2017)

The chart presents the share of the preventable non-fatal product-related injuries in the European Union between 2013-2017, based on the results of the impact assessment study realised for the evaluation of the General Product Safety Directive and its potential revision for the European Commission. The average number of injuries are estimates based on the European Injury Database and include the number of accidental, non-intentional product-related injuries in which consumers visited hospital emergency departments. Data excludes transport injury events and work-related injuries (paid work). When it comes to the estimated prejudice caused by all product-related injuries to consumers in the European Union in 2017, 36.9 billion euros (or 48% of the total amount of 76.6 billion euros) was due to the non-fatal injuries, with preventable injuries accounting for 5.5 billion euros. The percentage of preventable non-fatal injuries is an estimate based on interviews and previous research and studies, including a 1999 study of the Accident Research Centre of University of Monash that, in turn, relied on data covering the period 1991-1992.
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Tonnes of Illicit Pesticide Seized by the European Union Authorities

The chart presents the amount of illicit pesticides seized by the European Union authorities, during the Operation Silver Axe, over the period 2015 - 2021, based on the results of the report "Intellectual Property Crime: Threat Assessment 2022," published in March 2022 by EUIPO and Europol. The data shows that during the six editions of Operation Silver Axe 3,771 tonnes of illegal pesticides were seized, out of which 2,549 tones were seized in the last two editions (2020 and 2021).
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Turnover From Web Sales Broken Down by Own Website or Apps and Marketplace, 2019

The chart presents the share of e-commerce sales in total turnover, in 2019 for European enterprises (with more than 10 employees), by own website or apps and marketplace. Web sales via marketplaces for Hungary, Finland, Estonia, Croatia, Greece, Latvia, Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are less 1% and, therefore, not visible on the chart. The data are not available for Luxemboug (confidential), Italy (unreliable), Montenegro (unreliable) and North Macedonia (no data).