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Unfair Competition in Hosting Service Business Models – Content v. Set-Up
Abstract
The article provides an examination of the issue of unfair competition possibly arising from a particular business model of hosting services. The analysis is based on a recent court case in the Czech Republic. In particular, it demonstrates the different nature of various liabilities under national unfair competition laws that may be incurred by hosting service providers. It emphasises the distinction between the liability of service providers for the stored content, which is subject to the “safe harbour” limitations according to the E-Commerce Directive (recently DSA), and the liability for the particular service set-up, which is a different kind of liability arising from a certain unfair business model. The article also provides a practical perspective on the assessment of unfair practices inherent in some business models of hosting services under national unfair competition laws which are based on the statutory general clause. In particular, the observed case involved the practice of remuneration of uploaders for the number of downloads of the uploaded files and the implementation of a search engine.
Description
Keywords
unfair competition, internet hosting service providers
Funding
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Type
Article
License
Attribution 4.0 International
Date
2025-09-25
Publisher
Springer Nature
Book
Journal
IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law
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DOI
10.1007/s40319-025-01641-1