In this Part—

• “the E-Commerce Directive” means Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic commerce) M1;

• “information society services”—

  1. a

     has the meaning given in Article 2(a) of the E-Commerce Directive (which refers to Article 1(2) of Directive 98/34/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations M2); and

  2. b

     is summarised in recital 17 of the E-Commerce Directive as covering “any service normally provided for remuneration, at a distance, by means of electronic equipment for the processing (including digital compression) and storage of data, and at the individual request of a recipient of a service”;

• “recipient” means a person who (whether for professional purposes or otherwise) uses an information society service, in particular for seeking information or making it accessible;

• “service provider” means a person providing an information society service;

• F1“ the Union market ” means the market of —

  1. a

     one or more member States,

  2. b

     Northern Ireland, or

  3. c

     Northern Ireland and one or more member States;

• F2“ third country ” means a country other than—

  1. a

     Northern Ireland, or

  2. b

     a member State.

The presence or use in a particular place of equipment or other technical means of providing an information society service is not itself sufficient to constitute the establishment of a service provider.

Where it cannot be decided from which of a number of establishments a given information society service is provided, that service is to be regarded as provided from the establishment at the centre of the service provider's activities relating to that service.