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".
