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out in paragraph 1, certain national provisions on information society services relating to the
internal market, the establishment of service providers, commercial communications, electronic
contracts, the liability of intermediaries, codes of conduct, out-of-court dispute settlements, court
actions and cooperation between Member States.
3.
This Directive complements Community law applicable to information society services
without prejudice to the level of protection for, in particular, public health and consumer interests,
as established by Community acts and national legislation implementing them in so far as this does
not restrict the freedom to provide information society services.
…
5.
This Directive shall not apply to:
…
(b)
questions relating to information society services covered by Directives [95/46] and [97/66];
…’
10
Article 2 of Directive 2000/31 is worded as follows:
‘For the purpose of this Directive, the following terms shall bear the following meanings:
(a)
“information society services”: services within the meaning of Article 1(2) of Directive
98/34/EC [of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 laying down a
procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations
(OJ 1998 L 204, p. 37)] as amended by Directive 98/48/EC [of the European Parliament and
of the Council of 20 July 1998 (OJ 1998 L 217, p. 18)];
…’
11
Article 15 of Directive 2000/31 provides:
‘1.
‘Member States shall not impose a general obligation on providers, when providing the
services covered by Articles 12, 13 and 14, to monitor the information which they transmit or store,
nor a general obligation actively to seek facts or circumstances indicating illegal activity.
2.
Member States may establish obligations for information society service providers promptly
to inform the competent public authorities of alleged illegal activities undertaken or information
provided by recipients of their service or obligations to communicate to the competent authorities,
at their request, information enabling the identification of recipients of their service with whom they
have storage agreements.’
Directive 2002/21
12
Recital 10 of Directive 2002/21/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March
2002 on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services
(Framework Directive) (OJ 2002 L 108, p. 33) states:
‘The definition of “information society service” in Article 1 of Directive [98/34, as amended by
Directive 98/48,] spans a wide range of economic activities which take place on-line. Most of these
activities are not covered by the scope of this Directive because they do not consist wholly or
mainly in the conveyance of signals on electronic communications networks. Voice telephony and
electronic mail conveyance services are covered by this Directive. The same undertaking, for
example an Internet service provider, can offer both an electronic communications service, such as
access to the Internet, and services not covered under this Directive, such as the provision of web-
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