Vaultinum has announced the launch of a certified Timestamping offer, enabling the creation of traceable digital proofs. Among other uses, Vaultinum’s Timestamping solution will enable companies to demonstrate their compliance with the EU Omnibus Directive (28/05/2022), promoting price transparency and fair consumer practices.
The Christmas shopping season kicks off at the end of November with the Black Friday promotions, where discount scams are becoming commonplace. It is well known that most Black Friday promotions are misleading, and that in most cases product discounts tend to be inflated. In other words, most of the offers still don’t comply with European trade regulations, which state that the reference price must be clearly displayed and that the discount must be calculated on the cheapest price of a product in the last 30 days.
To address this critical issue, Vaultinum is launching its powerful Timestamping tool, to help companies prove that their promotional pricing information is accurate, reliable and complies with regulations such as the EU Omnibus Directive. This directive significantly increases the penalties associated with misleading promotions, fake reviews and aggressive door-to-door selling, in order to strengthen consumer protection, especially for those who shop online. The text provides for heavy fines and even imprisonment for companies that do not ensure strict compliance. The fine reaches 75,000 euros for companies and in the case of large-scale, repeat breaches, the fine can even be as high as 4 per cent of the company’s average annual turnover. In July 2023 the company Showroomprive was fined 600,000 euros for fake promotions by the French controlling authority (DGCCRF).
Easy to implement and use
Vaultinum Timestamping is designed to handle large volumes of data, using a machine-to-machine API that automates the timestamping process. Vaultinum’s solution offers a single interface, a Rest API and an online sandbox to enable any client platform to connect seamlessly to its timestamping platform. The Vaultinum solution complies with the RFC3161 timestamping protocol, thus offering high levels of performance and security.
In an era marked by digital advances and rapid technological innovation, ensuring transparency and accountability in markets is critical. Governments and regulators around the world strive to maintain fair and efficient market conditions.
“In this context, Timestamping emerges as an effective tool to demonstrate traceability and compliance. The tool records the date and time of an event in a secure way, providing an unalterable record that companies can use as undisputable proof in case of controls or litigations,” explains Josh Nunn, Vaultinum’s managing director for the UK. “During sales periods such as Black Friday, companies that timestamp their reference prices and discounts can easily prove that they comply with local regulation on price transparency.”
As well as being used by promotional websites that need to demonstrate that discounts are real and comply with consumer transparency regulations, Timestamping can be used by lawyers, legal officers, finance managers and supply chain managers for traceability needs such as:
- supply chain traceability: Timestamping records and timestamps product information at every stage of the supply chain allowing businesses to trace products all the way from their origin to their final destination, capturing critical information along the way. This enables companies to address a range of challenges, such as product recall, quality control, ethical sourcing and regulatory compliance.
- providing evidence of an event: Timestamping helps prove that an event occurred on a specific date and time in order to win a case, whether it is damage to a person or property, accident, infringement, etc.
- ensure compliance and audit readiness with time stamping: Timestamping is the best way to ensure compliance of digital documents such as invoices, payroll, financial transactions, legal documents, etc.
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