(11) This Directive should lay down common rules on certain requirements concerning contracts between traders and consumers for the supply of digital_content or a digital_service.
For this purpose, rules on the conformity of digital_content or a digital_service with the contract, remedies in the event of a lack of such conformity or a failure to supply and the modalities for the exercise of those remedies, as well as on the modification of digital_content or a digital_service, should be fully harmonised.
Fully harmonised rules on some essential elements of consumer contract law would make it easier for businesses, especially SMEs, to offer their products in other Member States.
Consumers would benefit from a high level of consumer protection and welfare gains by fully harmonising key rules.
Member States are precluded within the scope of this Directive from providing for any further formal or substantive requirements.
For example, Member States should not provide for rules on the reversal of the burden of proof that are different from those provided for in this Directive, or for an obligation for the consumer to notify the trader of a lack of conformity within a specific period.
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(12) This Directive should not affect national law to the extent that the matters concerned are not regulated by this Directive, such as national rules on the formation, validity, nullity or effects of contracts or the legality of the digital_content or the digital_service.
This Directive should also not determine the legal nature of contracts for the supply of digital_content or a digital_service, and the question of whether such contracts constitute, for instance, a sales, service, rental or sui generis contract, should be left to national law.
This Directive should also not affect national rules that do not specifically concern consumer contracts and provide for specific remedies for certain types of defects that were not apparent at the time of conclusion of the contract, namely national provisions which may lay down specific rules for the trader's liability for hidden defects.
This Directive should also not affect national laws providing for non-contractual remedies for the consumer, in the event of lack of conformity of the digital_content or digital_service, against persons in previous links of the chain of transactions, or other persons that fulfil the obligations of such persons.
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(60) Without prejudice to the fundamental right to the protection of private life, including confidentiality of communications, and to the protection of personal_data of the consumer, the consumer should cooperate with the trader in order for the trader to ascertain whether the cause of the lack of conformity lies in the consumer's digital_environment using the technically available means which are least intrusive for the consumer.
This can often be done for instance by providing the trader with automatically generated incident reports or with details of the consumer's internet connection.
Only in exceptional and duly justified circumstances where, despite the best use of all other means, there is no other way possible, consumers may need to allow virtual access to their digital_environment.
However, where the consumer does not cooperate with the trader and the consumer had been informed of the consequences of non-cooperation, it should be for the consumer to prove not only that the digital_content or digital_service is not in conformity, but also that the digital_content or digital_service was not in conformity at the time of supply of the digital_content or digital_service where the contract provides for a single act of supply or a series of individual acts of supply or, where the contract provides for continuous supply over a period of time, for the duration of the contract.
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