WRITTEN QUESTION E-1993/00 by Jürgen Zimmerling (PPE-DE) to the Commission. e-commerce.
Date: 2000-06-21
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: common commercial policy, electronic commerce

C 103 E/42

Official Journal of the European Communities

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3.4.2001

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(14 July 2000)

The Commission is aware of this initiative and was there when it was presented to Parliament. Although
the Commission acknowledges the important cultural role of European villages in the process of European
integration, it must inform the Honourable Member that the Community can support cultural projects
only under and in accordance with the criteria of existing programmes.

Thus, the choice of towns and cities for the (cid:145)European Capital of Culture(cid:146) up to the year 2004 was based
on a decision taken at intergovernmental level by the Ministers of Culture within the Council.

As regards the period 2005 to 2019, the procedure and the criteria for determining the European Capitals
of Culture have been set out in Decision 1419/1999/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
25 May 1999 establishing a Community action for the European Capital of Culture event for the years
2005 to 2019 (1).

Regarding all other cultural projects, the cultural operators (in this case, the villages of Europe) may
present a project under and in accordance with the criteria provided for by the (cid:145)Culture 2000(cid:146) programme,
which is the single programming and financing instrument for cultural cooperation.

(1) OJ L 166, 1.7.1999.

(2001/C 103 E/045)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1993/00

by J(cid:252)rgen Zimmerling (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(21 June 2000)

Subject: e-commerce

What measures are planned to regulate the following problem areas involving the Internet?

What is the Commission(cid:146)s legal position regarding:

1. The treatment of Internet domain names from the point of view of trade mark and labelling law;

2. The violation of trade mark law by the establishment of hyperlinks;

3. Repeated cautions concerning violations of the law (in particular copyright violations) on the Internet;

4. The obligation to pay defence costs (for instance lawyers(cid:146) fees) made necessary by unjustified cautions;

5. The criteria to distinguish between private and commercial web sites;

6. The question whether the NATD (notice and take down) liability derogation developed by US courts

will have a place in plans to regulate this field?

Supplementary information regarding point 6:

(cid:129) Under the NADT procedure,

liability derogation is accorded to a person infringing the law who
removes from the web the contents or links which he has put on the Internet and which are illegal
immediately after notification,
law
violation.

i.e. at the latest following the notification of the (copyright)

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C 103 E/43

Answer given by Mr Bolkestein on behalf of the Commission

(8 September 2000)

1.
The Commission is fully aware of the difficulties experienced within the Community in ensuring the
respect of trade mark law legislation as regards the speculative and abusive registration of names as
domain names. As announced in the communication from the Commission on the organisation and
management of the internet (1), the Commission will initiate public consultation on the necessary principles
required to fight against speculative and abusive registration of names as domain names.

The Commission supports the uniform dispute resolution policy (UDRP) that has been put in place by the
Internet corporation for assigned names and numbers (ICANN) and World intellectual property organiza-
tion (WIPO) for the generic top level domains and endorses the outcome of the international workshop on
cybersquatting held in Australia on 31 January 2000 and 1 February 2000, where it was agreed that WIPO
would be requested to initiate a study and develop recommendations on further issues arising from abusive
domain names registration in relation to the protection of personal and non-protected names within the
domain name system and to develop voluntary guidelines for the development of practices and policies to
curb abusive and bad faith registration of protected names.

2.
As regards the violation of trade mark law by the establishment of hyperlinks, the Commission is
actively participating in the work of the WIPO standing committee on the law of trademarks, industrial
designs and geographical indications on the protection of industrial property rights in relation to the use
of signs on the internet. In this framework, the Commission and the WIPO Member States are studying a
set of guidelines for the application of existing national or regional laws to legal problems resulting from
the use of a sign on the Internet, thus comprising the use of signs as hyperlinks.

The practice of repeated cautions is known in some Member States notably in case of violations of
3.
the law against unfair competition. As regards the fight against copyright piracy on the Internet, the
parties concerned seem to have less recourse to repeated cautions but usually submit specific notices to
Internet intermediaries to take copyright infringing material from the networks or to apply for injunctions
from the court against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or
related right. With respect to the development of specific notice-and-take down procedures, there is a
general agreement that these should be further developed by the marketplace itself (for further details see
reply to question 6). The possibility to ask for injunctions against Internet intermediaries has been
reiterated in Article 8(3) of the draft common position of the Council on the amended proposal for a
directive on copyright and related rights in the information society (2).

The Commission is not aware of any problems at Community level caused by national obligations to

4.
pay defence costs in the case of unjustified cautions.

5.
In its communication on the organisation and management of the Internet, the Commission has not
addressed the issue concerning the distinction between private and commercial web sites. This distinction
was suggested by the WIPO report of April 1999 on the Internet names and addresses as a means to
address data protection concerns in the sense that the domain name holders of private web sites would not
need to provide as much data for registration as commercial site holders. However, WIPO acknowledged
the necessity to reflect further on this proposal. The Commission will continue to follow this issue, taking
into account particularly the requirements of Directive 95/46/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of
24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the
free movement of such data (3) and Directive 97/66/EC of
the Council of
15 December 1997 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the
telecommunications sector (4).

the Parliament and of

6.
According to the approach of Directive 2000/31/EC of the Parliament and of the Council of 8 June
2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the
(Directive on electronic commerce) (5), notice and take down-procedures should be
Internal Market

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3.4.2001

developed on a voluntary basis and via co-operation between the parties involved. The Directive on
electronic commerce establishes liability standards for Internet intermediaries on which the development of
notice and take down-procedures can be based.

The Parliament supported this approach when it adopted the Directive on electronic commerce on 4 May
2000 without any amendments. In its legislative resolution the Parliament urged the Commission to
encourage the establishment of efficient notice and take down procedures.

The Commission will actively encourage and support such developments and participate in the dialogue
with all interested parties. Such procedures are likely to evolve quickly reflecting the technological progress
and market developments. Industry and users are the best parties to determine the requirements for the
effective functioning of such procedures and to agree upon the setting up of them.

(1) COM(2000) 202 final.
(2) Not yet formally adopted; on the Commission(cid:146)s proposal and Amended proposal for a Directive of the Parliament
and of the Council on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information
Society cf. COM(97) 628 final (OJ C 108, 7.4.1998) and COM(1999) 250 final (OJ C 180, 25.6.1999).

(3) OJ L 281, 23.11.1995.
(4) OJ L 24, 30.1.1998.
(5) OJ L 178, 17.7.2000.

(2001/C 103 E/046)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-2003/00

by Daniela Raschhofer (NI) to the Council

(13 June 2000)

Subject: Sanctions imposed on Austria

On 15 March 2000, the President-in-office of the Council, Mr Francesco Seixas da Costa indicated to the
European Parliament, during deliberations on reports concerning human rights in the EU, that he was
unable to deny that to date Austria had complied with all obligations arising from its EU membership. He
went on to say that, since everyone was personally affected,
if EU Member States did not confine
themselves to bilateral measures in response to the government formation in Austria, this could not be
regarded as interference in internal affairs.

At a Dutch Socialist congress held on 25 May 2000, the Portuguese President-in-office, Mr Guterres,
indicated that he was (cid:145)proud(cid:146), of the sanctions which could be raised only with the unanimous agreement
of the remaining 14 Member States.

In interview to the Italian newspaper (cid:145)La Republicca(cid:146) on 24 May 2000, Romano Prodi, President of the
Commission, declared that human rights violations would not be tolerated, while pointing out that, to
date, Austria had not committed any infringements.

In the light of the utterances of its Portuguese President-in-office, how can the Council support its

1.
assertion that the sanctions being imposed on Austria are of a bilateral nature rather than EU measures?

Does the Council consider the statement by Council President-in-office Mr Guterres that he is (cid:145)proud(cid:146)
2.
of the sanctions as an infringement of the EU Treaties, in particular the principle of solidarity embodied in
Article 1 of the EU Treaty and the principle of loyalty to the Community embodied in Article 10 of the
EC Treaty?

3.
As guardian of the Treaties, the Commission is responsible for monitoring all Member States and has,
by its own account, been closely scrutinising developments in Austria since the entry of the FP(cid:214) into
government. How can the Council justify maintaining sanctions against Austria in view of the Commis-
sion(cid:146)s conclusion that Austria has (cid:145)to date committed no infringements(cid:146), a view also expressed by Mr Seixas
da Costa in mid-March?