MODERNISATION OF INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS FOR CONSUMERS fairly and innovate in the digital environment.” The aim is “to ensure a safe, secure and fair online environment where fundamental rights are protected, and responsibilities of platforms, especially large players and gatekeepers, are well defined.”5 The concept of free, responsible and informed decisions on the selection of goods and services based on transparent information is not a new topic in the law of the Union. Many years ago, various problems connected with the presentation of objective, transparent and reliable information, so as to bring free and informed decisions on entering into consumer contracts, appeared already on offline internal markets, including the tourism and travel services market. The main instrument on the offline internal market of the EU for the provision of transparent information for consumers were pre-contractual duties for traders laid down in numerous consumer directives dealing with particular consumer contracts. Depending on the type of a consumer contract and its conclusion, these directives provide for the content, form and catalogue of precontractual information and remedies for the violation of the obligations.6 The aim has always been the same – to establish the necessary level of information for consumers in the pre-contractual phase and to avoid, or at least to minimise, any information asymmetry between consumers and traders and to ensure the consumers’ freedom to contract and their private autonomy. The same concept is now extended to the online market. To establish a just digital market, numerous new rules have been developed in the Union’s law aimed at ensuring transparent information for all participants. It is always emphasised that the transparency of information on the online market is even more important than on the offline market, not only for consumers7 but also for any business users of Internet platforms.8 The aims of these new rules have remained the same. The fulfilment of transparency requirements has been the required condition for the establishment of equality and balance in contractual 5 Taken from the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade, Chapter III: Freedom of Choice, p. 4. 6 For example, for package travel and linked travel arrangements, special rules on pre-contractual information are laid down in the Travel Package Directive (e.g. Arts 5-8). 7 See: European Commission Communication: A New Deal for Consumers, Bruxelles, 11/4/2018 COM/2018/183 final, p. 5. 8 See: European Commission Communication: Online Platforms and the Digital Single Market – Opportunities and Challenges for Europe, Brussels, 25/5/2016 COM(2016) 288 final, pp. 6,10.
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