Act on the Provision of Information Society Services - Electronic commerce

The Act on the Provision of Information Society Services (458/2002) entered into force on 1 July 2002. The Act enforces Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic commerce). This Directive seeks to promote electronic commerce in the internal market by ensuring the free movement of information society services between the Member States.

Information society services mean remote electronic services normally provided for remuneration, at a distance and at the individual request of a recipient of the service. According to the law, Finnish authorities monitor that information society service providers located in Finland comply with the national provisions, which fall within the coordinated field.

According to the law, information society service providers must provide the service recipients with certain information about themselves and their functions. Also, service providers must, prior the consumer makes an order by electronic means, provide them with instructions and information and to provide consumers with means for detecting and correcting eventual errors in orders in advance. The service provider must, without delay and by electronic means, notify the recipient of the service of having received the order unless the commodity is not delivered immediately by electronic means. Also, general service conditions must be made available to the recipient of the service in a way that allows him to store and reproduce them. The service provider’s obligation to provide information has been slightly reduced in contracts, which are concluded exclusively by exchange of electronic mail or by other individual communications.

It is FICORA’s responsibility to supervise that information society service providers fulfil the above-mentioned obligations to notify. In case of business-to-consumer trading, the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act (38/1978), supervised by the Consumer Ombudsman, must be complied with in electronic commerce. The Consumer Ombudsman has compiled guidelines for electronic commerce providers. According to section 26 of the Act on the Provision of Information Society Service, FICORA and the Consumer Ombudsman must cooperate appropriately when supervising information society service providers.

The law provides how to fulfil the formalities of the contract electronically, and on liabilities of service providers offering delivery and storage services for electronic data concerning the unlawful contents of the data it forwarded or stored. A prerequisite for exemption from liability is that the service provider’s operations are of technical nature and that the service provider itself is not involved in producing illegal contents. In addition, the service provider must comply with certain procedures enacted in the law when he has been notified of illegal data. Ultimately, a general court of first instance decides illegality of information.

There is more information available on how to process identification information in information society services at “Protection of privacy in electronic communications” ->”Content service providers".

EC Regulation on consumer protection cooperation