“Under article 5(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 a person who considered that his privacy rights had been infringed by content placed online on an internet website had the option of bringing an action either before the courts of the member state in which the publisher of that content was established or before the courts of the member state in which the centre of his interests was based. Under article 3 of Directive 2000/31/EC (‘the E-Commerce Directive’) member states had to ensure that, subject to the derogations authorised in accordance with the conditions set out in article 3(4), the provider of an electronic commerce service was not made subject to stricter requirements than those provided for by the substantive law applicable in the member state in which that service provider was established.”
WLR Daily, 25th October 2011
Source: www.iclr.co.uk