The UK's General Optical Council (GOC), the regulator for the optical professions in the UK, backed down from its prosecution of eBay by offering no evidence in support of the 10 summonses issued against eBay last August.

The regulatory body had initiated prosecution of eBay under Section 27(1) of the Opticians Act 1989 in the belief that eBay should actively monitor its website and de-list contact lenses that were being offered for sale unlawfully. According to the GOC press release issued on March 6, it had been advised that under European law, www.ebay.co.uk, cannot be required to actively monitor its listings.

Peter Coe, GOC registrar said, “The Council took action on this issue because of the dangers to consumers buying and wearing contact lenses which have not been fitted by a qualified professional. We recognize that eBay has put in place listing policies addressing these issues and appears to be ensuring that unlawful auctions of contact lenses are removed from the website. Hopefully the public is also now more aware of the risks of buying and wearing contact lenses from unregulated sellers."

Coe also said the case highlighted a loophole in laws designed for public protection. "We feel that it is an unreasonable burden for a regulator, with limited resources, to have to monitor the millions of listings on auction websites. In effect, we would have to notify the website of each individual instance of an illegal sale in order for it to be de-listed.”

The GOC statement said eBay qualifies as a "hosting company" under the European eCommerce Directive, which means that they cannot be required to actively monitor their listings. It also stated that the www.ebay.co.uk website is operated by eBay International AG, a company based in Switzerland.

Note: the following link leads to a file in PDF format.

http://www.optical.org/documents/2006-03-06GOCprosecutionofeBay.pdf