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The adoption of European norms has led to a high degree of legal and policy convergence. However, national laws remain divergent in many ways, and the assessment of discrepancies is becoming increasingly problematic because of the growing volumes of legislation. So far, comparative law has been the go-to solution for investigating similarities and differences between Member States as a result of harmonization policies. However, the vast complexity of current multilevel governance structures and their policies challenges the usefulness of classical comparative law as a method of investigation for such meta-issues. This article holds that comparative law can be considered Big Data and investigated as such. In other words, more complex and voluminous law and legal interpretations can be either coded into more quantitative observations on the basis of the premises of numerical comparative law, or, alternatively, they can be analysed with the help of new research technologies.

Abstract: The growth of the information society is enthusiastically embraced by the European Commission, which sees in the booming number of citizens purchasing goods online a strengthening of the internal market by way of an increase of cross-border trade. As is well known, contracts through which consumers buy products or demand services from traders that are not in their physical vicinity are considered to be distance contracts and are thus regulated by the Distance Selling Directive (DSD). Ironically, the DSD was not drafted with e-commerce in mind, which is understandable as the initial proposal dates from 1992. However, it was only adopted in 1997, and the fact that it still makes reference to decrepit distance communication techniques such as videophone and videotext, while failing to mention the internet even once, poses questions about its suitability to meet the technological progress of the last decade. An accurate illustration of this problem can be found in the 2012 Content Services Ltd v. Bundesarbeitskammer case. The analysis focused on determining whether sending a link via e-mail would meet the requirements of Article 5(1) of the DSD, which requires that the consumer receives or is given written confirmation of the relevant information or confirmation on another durable medium available. Résumé: La croissance de la société de l'information est accueillie avec enthousiasme par la Commission européenne, qui voit dans le nombre en plein essor des citoyens qui achètent des biens en ligne un renforcement du marché intérieur par le biais d'une augmentation de commerce transfrontalier. Comme c'est bien connu, les contrats par lesquels les consommateurs achètent des produits ou demandent des services des commerçants qui ne sont pas dans leur voisinage physique sont considérés comme des contrats à distance, et sont donc réglementés par la Directive concernant la protection des consommateurs en matière de contrats à distance (DSD). Ironiquement, la Directive sur la vente à distance n'a pas été rédigée avec l'e-commerce à l'esprit, parce que la proposition originale est daté 1992. Cependant, il n'a été adopté qu'en 1997, et le fait qu'il fait encore référence à techniques décrépit de communication à distance telles que la visiophone et le vidéotexte, tout en omettant de mentionner l'Internet même une fois, pose des questions sur son justesse en répondre à l'évolution technologique de la dernière décennie. Une illustration exacte de ce problème peut être trouvée dans le Content Services cas. L'analyse vise à déterminer si l'envoi d'un lien par e-mail répond aux exigences de l'article 5 (1) de la DSD, qui exige que le consommateur reçoit ou est fournie une confirmation écrite des informations pertinentes ou la confirmation sur un autre support durable à sa disposition.

Legal compliance is increasingly becoming digital, and that is a fact. In shaping its digital future, in the past years, the European Union has been proposing one legal reform after another, such as the Digital Services Act package or the AI Act. A common thread in these developments is the policy reflection on not only how to update or make new rules for digital markets but also how to enforce them effectively. This has already been reflected in earlier instruments such as the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation or the Digital Market Surveillance Regulation. Although necessary for checking legal compliance, resulting digital enforcement practices need fast innovations from an interdisciplinary scientific space, (e.g., law/computer science/behavioral sciences) which is in its infancy. The pursuit of developing "tools" that can monitor market actors or detect harmful behaviors requires, at a minimum, clear legal interpretations, the translation of these interpretations into computer science tasks, and the ranking of harms affecting consumer behavior. This gap and the surrounding pace at which demands for filling it increases, create some interesting questions relating to the ethical and legitimacy limits of digital market surveillance. In this position paper, we firstly explore definitional frameworks for surveillance on digital markets and digital enforcement and subsequently propose a practical taxonomy for the types of digital compliance activities which may be undertaken by designated authorities in the European Union as a result of recent enforcement regulation, particularly in relation to consumer protection and competition authorities. In this section, we look at the new CPC Regulation and address some of the issues relating to its application to the digital economy. In the third section, we critically reflect upon the dangers of privatizing legal enforcement and briefly address some potential solutions. The fourth section concludes.

On 16 December 2020, the European Commission delivered on the plans proposed in the European Digital Strategy by publishing two proposals related to the governance of digital services in the European Union: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The much-awaited regulatory reform is often mentioned in the context of content moderation and freedom of expression, market power and competition. It is, however, important to bear in mind the contractual nature of the relationship between users and platforms and the additional contracts concluded on the platform between the users, in particular traders and consumers. Moreover, the monetisation offered by digital platforms has led to new dynamics and economic interests. This paper explores the reform proposed by the European Commission by means of the DSA by touching upon four main themes that will be addressed from the perspective of consumer protection: (1) the internal coherence of European Union law; (2) intermediary liability; (3) the outsourcing of solutions to private parties; and (4) digital enforcement.

On 16 December 2020, the European Commission delivered on the plans proposed in the European Digital Strategy by publishing two proposals related to the governance of digital services in the European Union: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The much-awaited regulatory reform is often mentioned in the context of content moderation and freedom of expression, market power and competition. It is, however, important to bear in mind the contractual nature of the relationship between users and platforms and the additional contracts concluded on the platform between the users, in particular traders and consumers. Moreover, the monetisation offered by digital platforms has led to new dynamics and economic interests. This paper explores the reform proposed by the European Commission by means of the DSA by touching upon four main themes that will be addressed from the perspective of consumer protection: (1) the internal coherence of European Union law; (2) intermediary liability; (3) the outsourcing of solutions to private parties; and (4) digital enforcement.

It is 2021, and cyberattacks are relentless. Attacks can take many forms, such asransomware, which according to some estimations, accounted for approximately 4000 attacks per day, with 98% of the attacks relying on social engineering. Only in the US, ransomware attacks in 2020 costed an estimated $915 million. This working paper aims to look into the applicable legislative regimes to ransomware from the perspective of the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe (Budapest Convention). In doing so, in Section 2 the paper first describes ransomware, both from a technical perspective as well from the perspective of the novel business model of Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS).Section 3 is dedicated to applying the CFAA to ransomware, whereas Section 4 does the same for the Budapest Convention. Section 5 brings together some concluding reflections regarding the two legal regimes.

On 16 December 2020, the European Commission delivered on the plans proposed in the European Digital Strategy by publishing two proposals related to the governance of digital services in the European Union: the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The much-awaited regulatory reform is often mentioned in the context of content moderation and freedom of expression, market power and competition. It is, however, important to bear in mind the contractual nature of the relationship between users and platforms and the additional contracts concluded on the platform between the users, in particular traders and consumers. Moreover, the monetisation offered by digital platforms has led to new dynamics and economic interests. This paper explores the reform proposed by the European Commission by means of the DSA by touching upon four main themes that will be addressed from the perspective of consumer protection: (1) the internal coherence of European Union law; (2) intermediary liability; (3) the outsourcing of solutions to private parties; and (4) digital enforcement.

It is 2021, and cyberattacks are relentless. Attacks can take many forms, such as ransomware, which according to some estimations, accounted for approximately 4000 attacks per day, with 98% of the attacks relying on social engineering. Only in the US, ransomware attacks in 2020 costed an estimated $915 million. This working paper aims to look into the applicable legislative regimes to ransomware from the perspective of the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Convention on Cybercrime of the Council of Europe (Budapest Convention). In doing so, in Section 2 the paper first describes ransomware, both from a technical perspective as well from the perspective of the novel business model of Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). Section 3 is dedicated to applying the CFAA to ransomware, whereas Section 4 does the same for the Budapest Convention. Section 5 brings together some concluding reflections regarding the two legal regimes.

Cities are increasingly influenced by novel and cosmopolitan values advanced by transnational technology providers and digital platforms. These values which are often visible in the advancement of the sharing economy and smart cities, may differ from the traditional public values protected by national and local laws and policies. This article contrasts the public values created by digital platforms in cities with the democratic and social national values that the platform society is leaving behind. It innovates by showing how co-regulation can balance public values with platform values. In this article, we argue that despite the value-creation benefits produced by the digital platforms under analysis, public authorities should be aware of the risks of technocratic discourses and potential conflicts between platform and local values. In this context, we suggest a normative framework which enhances the need for a new kind of knowledge-service creation in the form of local public-interest technology. Moreover, our framework proposes a negotiated contractual system that seeks to balance platform values with public values in an attempt to address the digital enforcement problem driven by the functional sovereignty role of platforms.

Social media influencers have become increasingly important in the last years. Influencers, that is, individuals with a large number of followers on social media, filter information, advertise products and services, offer advice, and promote political opinions with a significant impact on a broad audience. Nevertheless, their actions have remained largely unregulated and overlooked in the literature. This paper offers an exploratory analysis of this phenomenon and delves into the regulatory challenges resulting from the activity of social media influencers. It fills an important gap in the academic literature by providing an interdisciplinary analysis of a phenomenon with growing societal relevance. Given their large audiences, influencers are very effective not only at creating online engagement for the companies that employ their services, but also at manipulating their followers' opinions and transactional behavior, as the latter do not always distinguish between genuine and sponsored marketing advice. Although advertising regulations include endorsements made on Instagram or Youtube by 'prosumers', influencers appear to disregard these regulatory limits and national regulators have experienced difficulties in safeguarding their enforcement. In this context, average social media users are at an ever-greater risk of falling prey to inconspicuous commercial interests. This paper also introduces an interdisciplinary project that brings together insights from media studies, law, communication science and empirical legal studies, dealing with themes such as social media, influencer marketing, free speech, gig work, platform governance, and consumer protection.