Consumer Law in the Digital Economy

Consumer law in the digital economy is oriented to social issues and not to a system of classification of whatever shape or form is predetermined by the respective legal system. The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming the ostensible phenomenon in which consumer law and data protection law are increasingly intertwined. The legal questions which arise from this deterritorialized connectivity, concern the conclusion of contracts, contracting parties, problems around the legal classification of the actions of platforms, liability for defects, IT security, data protection and problems regarding the enforcement of rights in deterritorialized contexts. The paper takes German law as paradigmatic. If one looks into the making of the contract until the enforcement, from cradle to grave so to say, a whole set of laws come to the fore: unfair commercial practices prior to the conclusion of the contract, the rules of the German civil code on offer and acceptance and on the control of standard contracts, data protection law that affects the content of the contract, last but not least procedural rules on the enforcement of individual and collective rights, inside and outside courts. EU law is omnipresent in the law on unfair commercial practices, in the control of standard terms, in data protection, in the alternative dispute settlement and in collective redress through the action of injunction. German law, however, has three particularities which need to be highlighted: the key role of unfair terms and unfair commercial practices legislation in the monitoring of the digital economy, private enforcement through consumer associations and the evolution of consumer data protection law. The paper concludes with a discussion on viable solutions.