New year - new legal situation for online retailers as of 2019

There are hardly any physical borders that can still restrict expanding online trade. However, legal differences persist between increasingly interconnected nations and companies that can be a hindrance to the development of global e-commerce: For example, on November 22, 2017, the General Courts of the European Court of Justice rejected a challenge to the EU-US Privacy Shield regulating transatlantic data sharing. This ruling was made at the European level and is relevant for companies from all over Europe involved in digital commerce, because the issue of data protection cannot be ignored when managing customer data.
The EU-US Privacy Shield is the successor to the Safe Harbor agreement, which formed the legal basis for personal data transfers between the EU and the USA until 2015. As explained in our detailed overview on the topic of international data protection, strict data protection principles apply within Europe that must also be observed when transferring data to third countries - even if they are not bound by the EU's data protection requirements. This becomes a problem when a third country such as the USA falls short of European data regulations and is considered "unsafe". Since 2016, the EU-US Privacy Shield has protected the personal data of European citizens that is securely transferred to U.S. companies as a result - which could be the case when using U.S. software, for example.