Press digest
Sharing economy
Euractive reports (see here) that the European Commission delayed the publication of its guidelines on sharing economy from March until mid-2016. The guidelines are expected to clarify the legal position of the online platforms and the scope of application of the Services Directive, the E-Commerce Directive and consumer acquis. The legal position of online platforms is also currently being evaluated by the CJEU in two cases concerning Uber (see C-434/15 and C-526/15).
Social Media
Facebook is under investigation in Germany for the potential abuse of its dominant position in the social networking area that would consist of gathering excessive amount of data from its users, without giving them a choice to use the service otherwise (see here and here). The standard terms and conditions of Facebook could thus also be challenged, in this respect, as unfair.
Also Tinder's practices have been questioned by consumer organizations, in countries such as Norway, Slovenia, the Netherlands. Tinder's T&Cs reserve the right for the company to repurpose user-generated data even after the account is deactivated (permanent deletion is impossible!) by the user. This data could include even personal photos. Other terms in the Tinder's T&Cs would also fail the unfairness test under the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (e.g. setting the US Texas law as the applicable law). (see here)
Healthy food
At a conference in Amsterdam, most MS and some stakeholders agreed to work together to further reduce salt, saturated fat and sugar content in food products (see here).
Within the EU Parliament MEPs have endorsed in the plenary new fruit and milk scheme. The existing milk scheme for schools will be enriched by new rules on fruit and vegetable. The aim is to increase school children access to fresh products, as well as to improve their education on healthy eating (see here).
