1. Transposition of the E-Commerce directive in Estonia Workshop on Electronic Commerce Directive 18.06 2008 Belgrade

2. General overview of information society in Estonia Population of Estonia 1,356 million Internet users 66%, 48% use Internet daily 51% of households have Internet connection (DSL, Cable, WiFi) 99% of public employees have workplace with Internet connection All governmental agencies have web pages (compulsory) 86% of tax declarations were completed online (2007) 95% of people use Internet banking More than 1 million ID cards have been issued About 5-6% of adults shop online at least once a week E-voting possible since 2005 The e-Cabinet Company registration is possible via Internet

3. Prior to the transposition of the directive Considerable uncertainty regarding service provider liability and applicable law in cross border services Co-operation agreements between ISP-s and copyright holders, in essence voluntary notice and take-down agreements General opt-in system for commercial communications since 2002 Information regarding service providers was rather sketchy, sometimes even non-existent Defamation on the Internet and piracy was a serious problem

4. Transposition of the directive Information Society Services Act (2004) Harmonized the ECD, except articles 9-11(electronic contracts), which were harmonized by other laws The biggest disputes in the period of harmonization: 1) Why do we need to introduce a completely new law? 2) Commercial communications and advertising 3) Opt-in for legal persons? In the end ECD was harmonized closely following the wording of the directive No special regime for hyperlinks, information location tools and content aggregators

5. After the transposition More legal clarity concerning service provider liability, especially for ISP-s and e-mail service providers Number of online service providers who did not provide sufficient information to the recipients of the service declined Market players are more prepared to fight against piracy in the Internet

6. Contact points and supervision Set up in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications One employee, part time Supervision divided between Data Protection Inspectorate and Technical Surveillance Authority Data Protection Inspectorate supervises matters regarding spam Technical Surveillance Authority matters regarding information requirements (ECD art 5)

7. Notice and take-down procedures No notice and take-down procedures stipulated by legal acts “Actual knowledge” not defined by law A number of voluntary NTD-s established by cooperation agreements between copyright holders and ISP-s for countering piracy in FTP servers Defamatory user comments in online newspapers are one of the biggest problems related to the liability provisions of the Information Society Services Act Most of online newspapers offer simple and easy to use means for readers to notify the editor of unsuitable comments Possible creation of a uniform NTD through a legal act including counter notice and put-back option

8. Issues of defamatory content in the Internet There have been a number of court cases focusing on the responsibility of reader comments in online newspapers No press law in Estonia Most recent Delfi.ee v V.Leedo, currently appealed The court must decide whether a online news portal (Delfi.ee) acting as a hosting provider is responsible for the content of user comments Also, the court must decide whether it is possible to oblige the service provider to prevent the posting of defamatory comments in the future In the first instance court had massive difficulties in defining the service (whether it is a hosting service or something else)

9. Commercial Communications Currently opt-in regime applies only to natural persons Soft opt-in system Legal persons are not protected by law Who does the e-mail address belong to? We are currently searching for the most suitable regime for legal persons

10. Consumer confidence towards online shopping Consumer confidence towards online shops is rather low in Estonia A number of high profile cases of disreputable online shops Trustmarking might be a suitable way to enhance the reputation of Estonian online shopping