Under the EU E-Commerce Directive, EU national authorities are permitted to take direct action against service providers based in other EU Member States, although such powers are limited to urgent cases involving matters of public policy, including the protection of minors and consumers.

The UK premium rate services regulator "ICSTIS" reported recently that it has used these powers to fine and close down two online adult service providers, Greenock based in Spain and Premium Call GmbH based in Germany. Each of these services was considered to be in breach of the public policy rules by repeatedly referring in promotional material to sexual acts involving children, and by enabling the premium rate "dialler" software used to access the online services to download automatically without the user's knowledge.

The fines imposed were of £75,000 for Greenock and £50,000 for Premium Call GmbH, and access to both services has been barred for a period of two years. Both companies may also be required to compensate users of their services. Although these were extreme cases, they may serve as a reminder of the powers that the competent authorities, throughout the EU, have and are using in the area of online services.

Published on 7 November 2000