Database

The “Anti-Amazon Law” essentially forbids online booksellers from applying government-regulated discounts to the cover prices of books. They can mark down shipping, but they cannot offer it free. The law guarantees in practice that books sold in physical stores will be at least 5% cheaper than those sold online. As a result, Amazon started to charge EUR 0,01 per delivery.

The EU Copyright Directive allows “fair compensation” for copyright owners. As a result, several Member States have imposed national levy systems.

In France, the copyright remuneration is collected through levies on media and equipment with internal storage capacity, determined by the extent of the capacity. Liable for payment are importers and manufacturers of submitted carriers/devices, at the time of distribution on the territory. The following rates apply:
- Data CD R & RW: per 100 000 Mb 50.00 EUR.
- Data DVD Ram & DVD R & RW per 100 Gb 19.15 EUR.
-Memories and hard disc integrated in a TV set, a video recorder or a TV decoder/ADSL-box: up to 8 Gb: 6.30 EUR and depending on the size of the memory of up to 500 Gb: 45EUR.
- Memories and hard disc integrated in an audio Walkman (MP3 Walkman) or lounge device (remuneration in Euros per Gigabyte (EUR/Gb)): up to 8 Gb: 1.50 EUR/Gb, over 8 Gb up to 32 Gb: 1 EUR/Gb.
- USB keys (remuneration in Euros per Gigabyte (EUR/Gb)) from up to 2 Gb: 0.20 EUR/Gb until over 8 Gb: 0.10 EUR/Gb.
- For memory cards (remuneration in Euros per Giga byte (EUR/Gb) levies from up to 2 Gb: 0.09 EUR/Gb until over 8 Gb: 0.06 EUR/Gb apply.
- For standard external hard discs (private copying remuneration in Euros) levies from up to 120 Gb: 8.40 EUR until over 5000 Gb & up to 10 000 Gb: 0.012 EUR/Gb apply.
- On mobile phones enabling the display of music and videograms, for example, the following levies are collected: Up to 8 Gb: 0.7000 EUR/Gb.
- On memories and hard discs dedicated to the storage and display of audio integrated in a global positioning system (GPS) or a car radio and separated from the capacity devoted to other elements such as the navigation software and road map information of any capacity a levy of 1.25 EUR/Gb applies.
- On multimedia tactile tablets running with a specific operating system or a mobile device operating system (remuneration in Euros per Giga byte (EUR/Gb)) levies apply as well.

The Finland 2002 Act on Gaming made RAY (one of three organisations that form the Finnish government’s monopoly on gaming) is the sole official provider of online gambling for the mainland. However, because of better odds and prizes, many mainland Finns switch RAY and Veikkaus (the Finnish National Lottery) to PAF (Play among Friends), causing officials at RAY to push for legal action. The government stepped in again to intervene, deciding to allow both organisations to operate concurrently.

It is reported that the Finnish government deters its citizens from gambling outside the borders of the country, but there is no legal framework in place for them to prevent or act against such activity. Due to complaints from foreign gambling operators to European authorities, between 2006 and 2013, Finland was among nine EU member states whose gambling legislation was under investigation by the European Commission for potentially being over-restrictive with regards to EU free trade laws (IP/06/436). These proceedings concerned the cross border provision and marketing of sports betting services. In 2013, the Commission concluded that the new Finnish Lotteries Act is compatible with the EU law and closed the investigation.

Advertising spirits online is banned and Finnish sellers are not allowed to sale alcohol online. However, Finnish citizens can import alcohol from foreign online alcohol providers.

The European de minimis threshold for import duties is harmonized. Goods with a value of up to 131 SDR / 150 EUR / 198 USD are exempted from customs duties. The VAT de minimis threshold is not harmonized within the EU and can vary between 10 and 22 EUR, i.e. Member States can decide on a value within this range to grant an exemption on VAT for imported goods.

According to Finland's de minimis rule, goods with a value of up to 19 SDR / 22 EUR / 29 USD are exempted from VAT.

Before the enactment of the Information Society Code, the operational obligations related to the protection of privacy have only concerned telecom operators, corporate subscribers and providers of value-added services.

Since 2015, those obligations apply to all operators whose electronic communication services are used for exchanging confidential messages, including social media. Thus, social media companies must now ensure that users of their messaging services get the same standards of privacy and security as the ones that telecommunications companies offer.

Before the enactment of the Information Society Code, the operational obligations related to the protection of privacy have only concerned telecom operators, corporate subscribers and providers of value-added services.

Since 2015, those obligations apply to all operators whose electronic communication services are used for exchanging confidential messages, including social media. Thus, social media companies must now ensure that users of their messaging services get the same standards of privacy and security as the ones that telecommunications companies offer.

The European Court of Justice has interpreted in 2014 that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be ordered by national courts to block customer access to a copyright-infringing website. This ruling aims to limit online piracy.

Under the Finnish Copyright Act, courts may grant an injunction to discontinue the availability of copyrighted material to the public. In this context, several Internet service providers in Finland have been ordered to block access to certain domains and IP addresses.

The Directive 2000/31/EC (E-Commerce Directive) is the legal basis governing the liability of Internet Services Providers (ISPs) in the EU Member States and includes a conditional safe harbor. The Directive covers any type of infringement of third-party rights, including intellectual and industrial property rights and personality rights.

The limitations on liability in the Directive apply to clearly delimited activities (mere conduit, caching and hosting) carried out by internet intermediaries, rather than to categories of service providers or types of information. While it was not considered necessary to cover hyperlinks and search engines in the Directive, the Commission has encouraged Member States to further develop legal security for Internet intermediaries.

Since not all Member States have transposed the relevant articles consistently, the national case law is divergent and leads to legal insecurity on an EU level.

In Finland, the Act 458/2002 on Information Society Services and Electronic Commerce implements the E-Commerce Directive almost verbatim, but at the same time it has some important distinctions such as not implementing Art. 15 on prohibition of monitoring obligations.

Before the enactment of the Information Society Code, the operational obligations related to the protection of privacy have only concerned telecom operators, corporate subscribers and providers of value-added services. Since 2015, those obligations apply to all operators whose electronic communication services are used for exchanging confidential messages, including social media. Thus, social media companies must now ensure that users of their messaging services get the same standards of privacy and security as the ones that telecommunications companies offer.

For Finland, IP address can be regarded as personal data. It is reported that this classification could have serious implications for search engines and other electronic businesses, concerning online personalised marketing business models.

Under the Directive on Data Retention, operators were required to retain certain categories of traffic and location data (excluding the content of those communications) for a period between six months and two years and to make them available, on request, to law enforcement authorities for the purposes of investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime and terrorism. On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) declared the Directive invalid. However, not all national laws which implemented the Directive have been overturned.

In Finland, data retention laws are still in force. However, following the ECJ ruling invaliding the Data Retention Directive, the scope and the application of the Finnish Information Society Code is limited. For instance, it does not include website browsing. Moreover, small operators are not required to retain their data. The data retention period goes from six months to 12 months, according to the category of the data.

The Accounting Act requires that a copy of the accounting records in kept within Finland. Alternatively, the records can be stored in another EU country if a real-time connection to the data is garanteed.

For contractual service suppliers (CSS) and independent service suppliers (ISS), there are labour market tests, but there are no needs test for intra-corporate transferees (ICT) in case of high and middle management, special skills and expert tasks. Highly-qualified workers and certain other groups are exempted from the labour market tests.

The Finnish State owns only 3.2% of the total shares in TeliaSonera.