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ARCHIVED - Spain to regulate concealed online publicity and advertising
New measures announced to protect consumer rights regarding online sales in Spain
The Minister for Consumer Affairs in the Spanish government, Alberto Garzón, has announced that the use of “hidden publicity” online is to be prohibited, along with falsified testimonials and reviews, while a clampdown is to be launched on the illegal resale of tickets to cultural and sporting events.
The aim of the measures is to adapt consumer rights legislation to new technologies through a series of reforms of the current Consumer Rights Law, and among the punishments stipulated are fines of up to a million euros for cases of mass fraud. Particular attention is to be paid to practices on online sales channels which are currently not regulated, such as the use of “bots” for the re-sale of tickets at prices higher than the original sale value.
The ban on “hidden publicity” is to be applied to social networks, which are currently not regulated in this respect, while the use of paid or falsified testimonials is also to be prohibited. Sales material of this kind will be required to include a statement to the affect that all testimonials are provided by genuine customers without incentive, and it is also intended that purchasers who evaluate one product higher than its competitors will be monitored.
A further reform is that search engines are to be required to specify the parameters used in ordering search results.
Measures are also to be introduced to allow the Spanish government to impose fines on companies based outside Spain, as was the case with the “Dieselgate” scandal in 2015, when it was found that 11 million vehicles manufactured by Volkswagen were emitting up to 40 times more harmful substances than the legal limit. In that instance fines were imposed in Germany and Italy, but in Spain the government was not entitled to punish the company.