WTF?
Under current EU distance selling rules.
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/dist_sell/index_en.htm
1. Maximum delivery time is 30 days, this is not new.
2. Damage on delivery is the sellers loss not the customers, this is not new.
3. The buyer can return anything they buy on sight, and get a full refund of everything except the return cost. Excluded personalized products, this is not new. This WAS 7 days, now increased to 14, but 7 was plenty.
What is new is
4. Ban on preticked boxes, i.e. the Ryanair preticked 'travel insurance' box. Meaningless, it's not so difficult to uncheck a box.
5. End to hidden charges, i.e. the Ryanair '5.99' tickets that actually add up to 30 quid. Good.
6. "Omissions clause"... not sure how they word that, that could be ripe for abuse by UK.
7. Crack down on pressure selling face to face, .... already have cooling off period, worthless.
8. Disclosure of intermediary status, stoopid, shops are ALL intermediaries to wholesalers, who are intermediaries for importers who are intermediaries for manufacturers. What will happen is EU shops will be made to disclose their suppliers, and their competitors abroad will use that information.
9. Email allowed instead of letter, difficult one that since 'I sent you an email' is unprovable and there can't be a special legal exception just for commerce. Bad.
10. DANGER, be careful to define contract so you don't legalise these crappy EULAs as a side affect of having a black list on unacceptable contract terms. When you unacceptable, and put EULA terms on them you are implicitly accepting the EULA as valid.
11. Auctions covered like any other sale.... bad. 50 people in a room bidding on an item, they all get the same chance, a person buys it and decides they don't want it (e.g. finds out they can't resell it, changes their minds, buyers remorce), those 49 other people have been denied their chance to buy it. It's not fair to them. The buyer can abuse this to keep buying until he gets an auction with few people and the price he wants.
12. Rights displayed at point of sale, i.e. EU advert, like the EU advert in airports to tell you your rights come courtesy of the EU. Pointless. Nobodies going to read small print on their legal rights at a point of sale, do your own advertising, don't burder retailers with it.
You know what. Of these only 5) is the one that really helps consumers IMHO. The rest are vague enough for national governments to use them as protectionism against competing EU nations retailers.
e.g. UK demand preregistration of all contract terms to comply with 10, and penalties for shops abroad that don't comply. Just like it required all databases to be registered as part of it's 'data protection' implementation, so it could go mine them.