The GOC brought the action against eBay in August 2005, after it
found over 200 contact lenses advertised on the site.
The dangers of infection and irritation from contact lenses are
such that, by law, all contact lenses are required to be fitted by
a qualified optician or doctor, and lens wearers are advised to
have regular check-ups.
The watchdog intended to argue that eBay was responsible for
preventing unsupervised sales of contact lenses via its website,
but yesterday it offered no evidence at a hearing at the City of
London Magistrate’s Court and the case was dismissed.
The dismissal was blamed on the UK's E-commerce Regulations
2002, which implements the EU's E-commerce Directive.
This provides, in general terms, that an ISP or website operator
that hosts or runs a website with illegal content is not liable for
the content if it is not aware of its existence (and there is no
need to monitor all content hosted); but if and when it becomes
aware of the existence of illegal material, the ISP or operator
must remove it or prevent access to it to avoid being held legally
responsible.
In this case eBay had been removing web pages advertising
contact lenses for sale, as and when it was notified of their
existence.
“We recognise that eBay has put in place listing policies
addressing these issues and appears to be ensuring that unlawful
auctions of contact lenses are removed from the website,” said
Peter Coe, GOC Registrar.
“However, this case has highlighted a loophole in laws designed
for public protection,” he continued. “We feel that it is an
unreasonable burden for a regulator, with limited resources, to
have to monitor the millions of listings on auction websites. In
effect, we would have to notify the website of each individual
instance of an illegal sale in order for it to be de-listed.”
Speaking to the BBC, an eBay legal spokesman stressed that the
firm has an "extensive notice and take down programme to try to
ensure that illegal activity doesn't take place through its
website".
