CI: CYBER RULES FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION URGENTLY NEEDED SAYS INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

This just in from Consumers International. Jamie

-------------------
PRESS RELEASE
Embargoed 
6th September 1999

CYBER RULES FOR CONSUMER PROTECTION 
URGENTLY NEEDED SAYS INTERNATIONAL 
FOUNDATION

NEW SURVEY POINTS TO PROBLEMS WITH ONLINE SALES

International guidelines to protect consumers who buy goods on 
the Internet are long overdue, says the global federation of 
consumer organisations.

Cross-border shopping on the Internet needs to be consumer-
friendly and secure or electronic commerce will never reach its 
full potential, argues Consumers International, a federation of 
245 consumer organisations in 111 countries.

As an essential step to achieving this goal, Consumers 
International calls for the finalisation of guidelines for electronic
commerce.

The guidelines will be debated at a Paris meeting (8-10 
September) of the Consumer Policy Committee of the 
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD). The committee consists of representatives of the 29 
OECD member governments, as well as business, labour and 
consumer representatives.

These guidelines, known as the Guidelines for Consumer 
Protection in the Context of Electronic Commerce, have been 
under discussion for two years.

They cover such areas as jurisdiction, collection of personal 
information and redress.

Business opposition has been one of the main stumbling blocks 
to passage of the guidelines and once again industry is lobbying 
hard to weaken them - by turning the detailed, practical content 
into a set of vague general principles.

Consumer organisations strongly oppose such a move.

"The important point is to get some baseline protection in place 
so that consumers can have confidence in using electronic 
commerce," said Louise Sylvan, vice-president of Consumers 
International and chief executive of the Australian Consumers' 
Association.

Currently, the OECD is the only governmental trans-national 
body that has taken on the task of developing a set of self-
regulatory consumer protection guidelines that could provide a 
framework for global cross-border electronic commerce.

Consumers International urges the OECD not to bow to industry 
pressure and delay tactics and hopes the Consumer Policy 
Committee will finally recommend approval of the guidelines by 
the OECD council by the end of 1999.

The myriad of problems faced by consumers shopping on the 
Internet is demonstrated by Consumers International's landmark 
international survey "Consumers@shopping: An international 
comparative study of electronic commerce," to be released 6 
September.

For the European Commission funded study, consumer 
organisations in 11 countries - Australia, Belgium, Germany, 
Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the 
United Kingdom and the United States - ordered more than 150 
items from 17 different countries and then returned most of them.

The sites used were those of established traders and easy-to-
find sites.

The study found that:

·   One in 10 items never arrived
·   Two buyers, from the United Kingdom and Hong 
    Kong, have waited over five months for refunds
·   Almost half - 44 percent - of the products ordered 
    arrived without receipts
·   73 percent of traders failed to give crucial contract 
    terms
·   Over 25 percent gave no address or telephone number
·   24 percent were unclear about the total cost of the item 
    that was ordered

The problems uncovered in Consumers International's survey 
indicate a real need for cyber rules of conduct.

"Electronic commerce will flourish only when consumers are 
reassured of real protection in the areas of privacy, security and 
redress," Ms Sylvan said. "Enough people are starting to use e-
com that its potential can really take off, or it will start to 
produce horror stories and will falter from mistrust."


                                -END-

Editors Note: Copies of ?Consumers@shopping: An 
international comparative study of electronic commerce" 
are available from Consumers International or can be 
accessed on our website, www.consumersinternational.org
Consumers International's vice-president, Louise Sylvan, 
will be available in London for interviews on Monday, 6 
September and in Paris on 8-10 September 1999.

Chris Gethin
TEL x202
Nadia Chelafa
TACD Secretariat
Tel: +44 171 226 66 63 (ext 210) 
Fax: +44 171 354 06 07


-- 
James Love, Director, Consumer Project on Technology
I can be reached at love@cptech.org, by telephone 202.387.8030,
by fax at 202.234.5176. CPT web page is http://www.cptech.org