> If I travel to the U.S. and buy something at a store, EU consumer protections don't apply, nor should they. If I make a telephone order from a U.S. shop, they

> If I travel to the U.S. and buy something at a store, EU consumer protections don't apply, nor should they. If I make a telephone order from a U.S. shop, they don't have to comply with European law; I came to them. The traditional law on this isn't quite that clear in the 2nd case. If you take telephone or mail orders and ship to other countries, you do run a significant risk of exposing yourself to the laws of the destination country. If you have no presence in the destination it may be harder to enforce any ruling against you, though, so countries traditionally did much of the enforcement via screening shipments at customs. If you were selling mail-order goods without complying with destination law (e.g. selling appliances legal in the source country but not meeting safety-testing standards of the destination country), the law would be enforced by simply confiscating your shipments. Once it's in, it's harder to enforce laws, but in principle you can still be hauled into court in the destination country for e.g. a product-liability lawsuit.