European Union: Requested preliminary ruling in Lawsuit on responsibilities of the operator of an online marketplace (X v Russmedia, Case C-492/23)

On 4 December 2023, the Court of Appeals of Cluj requested a preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding the application of EU law to a storage and hosting information service provider. The applicant X, took legal action against Russmedia Digital SRL and Inform Media Press SRL. The referring court seeks clarification on several points related to the responsibilities of service providers that host user-generated advertisements. The first question asks whether Articles 12 to 14 of Directive 2000/31/EC apply to such a service provider, which claims a purely technical role in publishing advertisements but retains extensive rights over the content, including the ability to copy, distribute, modify, and remove it. The second question concerns whether certain provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), specifically Articles 2(4), 4(7) & (11), 5(1)(f), 6(1)(a), 7, 24, and 25, as well as Article 15 of Directive 2000/31/EC, require the provider to verify if the person publishing the advertisement is the same as the data subject whose personal data is used in the advertisement. The third question asks whether the GDPR requires the service provider to verify the content of advertisements before publication to prevent potential violations of privacy or unlawful content. Finally, the fourth question seeks guidance on whether the GDPR and Directive 2000/31/EC require the provider to implement safeguards to prevent or limit the reproduction and redistribution of published advertisement content.