Article 2 – Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

  1. ‘business user’ means any private individual acting in a commercial or professional capacity who, or any legal person which, through online intermediation services offers goods or services to consumers for purposes relating to its trade, business, craft or profession;
  2. ‘online intermediation services’ means services which meet all of the following requirements:
    1. they constitute information society services within the meaning of point (b) of Article 1(1) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council1;
    2. they allow business users to offer goods or services to consumers, with a view to facilitating the initiating of direct transactions between those business users and consumers, irrespective of where those transactions are ultimately concluded;
    3. they are provided to business users on the basis of contractual relationships between the provider of those services and business users which offer goods or services to consumers;
  3. ‘provider of online intermediation services’ means any natural or legal person which provides, or which offers to provide, online intermediation services to business users;
  4. ‘consumer’ means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside this person’s trade, business, craft or profession;
  5. ‘online search engine’ means a digital service that allows users to input queries in order to perform searches of, in principle, all websites, or all websites in a particular language, on the basis of a query on any subject in the form of a keyword, voice request, phrase or other input, and returns results in any format in which information related to the requested content can be found;
  6. ‘provider of online search engine’ means any natural or legal person which provides, or which offers to provide, online search engines to consumers;
  7. ‘corporate website user’ means any natural or legal person which uses an online interface, meaning any software, including a website or a part thereof and applications, including mobile applications, to offer goods or services to consumers for purposes relating to its trade, business, craft or profession;
  8. ‘ranking’ means the relative prominence given to the goods or services offered through online intermediation services, or the relevance given to search results by online search engines, as presented, organised or communicated by the providers of online intermediation services or by providers of online search engines, respectively, irrespective of the technological means used for such presentation, organisation or communication;
  9. ‘control’ means ownership of, or the ability to exercise decisive influence over, an undertaking, within the meaning of Article 3(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/20042;
  10. ‘terms and conditions’ means all terms and conditions or specifications, irrespective of their name or form, which govern the contractual relationship between the provider of online intermediation services and its business users and are unilaterally determined by the provider of online intermediation services, that unilateral determination being evaluated on the basis of an overall assessment, for which the relative size of the parties concerned, the fact that a negotiation took place, or that certain provisions thereof might have been subject to such a negotiation and determined together by the relevant provider and business user is not, in itself, decisive;
  11. ‘ancillary goods and services’ means goods and services offered to the consumer prior to the completion of a transaction initiated on the online intermediation services in addition to and complementary to the primary good or service offered by the business user through the online intermediation services;
  12. ‘mediation’ means any structured process as defined in point (a) of Article 3 of Directive 2008/52/EC;
  13. ‘durable medium’ means any instrument which enables business users to store information addressed personally to them in a way accessible for future reference and for a period of time adequate for the purposes of the information and allows the unchanged reproduction of the information stored.
  1. Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical regulations and of rules on Information Society services (OJ L 241, 17.9.2015, p. 1). [↩]
  2. Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (the EC Merger Regulation) (OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1). [↩]