The pressure brought to bear by the European Commission and the network of national consumer protection authorities is starting to pay off: Airbnb and Facebook have promised to change the terms and conditions of use in their service contracts by 18 October, to come fully into line with EU law before the end of the year, the European Commission announced on Thursday 20 September.
The European Commissioner for Justice and Consumers, Vera Jourova, expressed her satisfaction, but not yet her delight, at these first few results. The Commission and the competent national authorities can use the time between 18 October and the end of December to verify whether their expectations have been met.
According to the Commission, Airbnb has pledged to improve the transparency of its prices and allow consumers to use all means of legal redress - such as taking proceedings against their host in the event of damage suffered, personal or of any other nature. In so doing, the platform has responded favourably to the ultimatum set it in July. In a coordinated action, the European institution and the national authorities gave this digital operator until the end of August to present detailed proposals to remedy the situation (see EUROPE 12063).
“I asked whether travellers who have already booked a stay before Christmas could benefit from better conditions. The answer was yes, but the guarantee will mainly be for contracts from 1 January onwards. In any event, the new provisions will be fully operational by the end of the year”, the Commissioner told the press.
As regards Facebook and its practices that fail to respect the data of European users – as highlighted by the Cambridge Analytica scandal – Jourova repeated that she expected the social media company to show responsibility and honesty towards the 380 million Europeans with a Facebook account, to inform them in full transparency and clarity of their terms and conditions and how their data may be used.
In particular, she stressed that very few users are aware that Facebook owns all rights to photographs and content published on the social network, even after an account has been deactivated.
“I am pleased that Facebook is prepared to work with us to find solutions by the end of the year”, the Commissioner said. She said that the changes should be made between now and 18 October, adding: “I will not hide that I am becoming rather impatient because we have been in dialogue with Facebook for almost 2 years (see EUROPE 11962). I really want to see not progress, it's not enough for me, I want to see the results which will be projected in the conditions for European consumers”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)