Article 3 – Terms and conditions

  1. Providers of online intermediation services shall ensure that their terms and conditions:
    1. are drafted in plain and intelligible language;
    2. are easily available to business users at all stages of their commercial relationship with the provider of online intermediation services, including in the pre-contractual stage;
    3. set out the grounds for decisions to suspend or terminate or impose any other kind of restriction upon, in whole or in part, the provision of their online intermediation services to business users;
    4. include information on any additional distribution channels and potential affiliate programmes through which providers of online intermediation services might market goods and services offered by business users;
    5. include general information regarding the effects of the terms and conditions on the ownership and control of intellectual property rights of business users.
  2. Providers of online intermediation services shall notify, on a durable medium, to the business users concerned any proposed changes of their terms and conditions.
    The proposed changes shall not be implemented before the expiry of a notice period which is reasonable and proportionate to the nature and extent of the envisaged changes and to their consequences for the business user concerned. That notice period shall be at least 15 days from the date on which the provider of online intermediation services notifies the business users concerned about the proposed changes. Providers of online intermediation services shall grant longer notice periods when this is necessary to allow business users to make technical or commercial adaptations to comply with the changes.
    The business user concerned shall have the right to terminate the contract with the provider of online intermediation services before the expiry of the notice period. Such termination shall take effect within 15 days from the receipt of the notice pursuant to the first subparagraph, unless a shorter period applies to the contract.

    The business user concerned may, either by means of a written statement or a clear affirmative action, waive the notice period referred to in the second subparagraph at any moment from the receipt of the notice pursuant to the first subparagraph.

    During the notice period, submitting new goods or services to the online intermediation services shall be considered clear affirmative action to waive the notice period, except in cases where the reasonable and proportionate notice period is longer than 15 days because the changes to the terms and conditions require the business user to make significant technical adjustments to its goods or services. In such cases, the notice period shall not be considered automatically to be waived where the business user submits new goods and services.

  3. Terms and conditions, or specific provisions thereof, which do not comply with the requirements of paragraph 1, as well as changes to terms and conditions implemented by a provider of online intermediation services contrary to the provisions of paragraph 2 shall be null and void.
  4. The notice period set out in the second subparagraph of paragraph 2 shall not apply where a provider of online intermediation services:
    1. is subject to a legal or regulatory obligation which requires it to change its terms and conditions in a manner which does not allow it to respect the notice period referred to in the second subparagraph of paragraph 2;
    2. has exceptionally to change its terms and conditions to address an unforeseen and imminent danger related to defending the online intermediation services, consumers or business users from fraud, malware, spam, data breaches or other cybersecurity risks.
  5. Providers of online intermediation services shall ensure that the identity of the business user providing the goods or services on the online intermediation services is clearly visible.