Building Consumer Confidence by Ensuring Consumer protection Breda Kutin, ZPS president and BEUC Vice- president i 2010 Information Society at the Crossroads Brdo, Slovenia 13th- 14th May, 2008

ZPS- BEUC- Independent NGO, established in 1990 to represent consumers interests and their rights. Main activities: independent consumer advice and information, legal aid consumer representation and education, national and international co-operation European Consumer Organization created in 1962 and include 41 independent national consumer organisations to represent members and defend the interests of all Europes consumers. BEUC formally represents consumers within the decision-making process in Brussels

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for consumers Allows new forms of products and services for business and consumers Foster access to information and have the capability to bring extraordiniary choice of means, place and time content to be accessed Move from passive consumer to consumer- generated content

Negative side effects of ICT 1.New types of crime 2.An increasing tensions between commercial business models based on fencing knowledge and content on the one hand and noncommercial areas of the public sphere on the other more complex for policy makers to identify the key problems and to take appropriate measures

E-commerce E-commerce over the internet Mobile commerce via phones and Distance commerce through other channels like TV

Trustmarks to increase consumer confidence Trustmarks has been discussed for years Agreement between UNICE and BEUC has never been implemented Trustmarks based on self-regulatory often do not provide required protection Traders do not join to avoid related costs How can consumers easily identify trustmarks Enforcement mechanisms Development of sectoral trustmarks

Access to justice Redress mechanisms is also one of the persisting problems Iniciatives have been undertaken to reinforce access to justice through ADR systems facilitating by European Consumer Centres

Geographical Discrimination Consumers that do want to purchase products and services cross-boarder are hindred to do so beacuse: Traders refuse to deliver into the other countries Where price discrimination and market segmentation persist, consumers will be frustrated with the internal market experience.

Intellectual property The stakes for consumers in intelectual property are generally increasing- while the rights of consumers to enjoy digital works remain unclear. Current trends in intellectual property, digital rights management and technology protection do not adequately acnowledge and protect consumer rights or the wider public interests

Charter of Consumer Rights in the Digital Environment 1.Right to access neutral networks 2.Right to access digital media and information 3.Right to secure networks and services 4.Right to privacy and data protection 5.Right to software interoperability 6.Right to barrier-free access and equality 7.Right to pluralistic media

Security,Realiblity and data protection Consumers must have a right to secure, reliable and protective digital services. The consumer must be sure his personal data is protected by service provider against unauthorised intrusions. Privacy and personal authonomy must at any time be respected. User-centric- solutions must be developed.

Interoperability Consumers want to be able more flexibly choose among different services that offer technically protected content which in turn can be used on different devices. In order to assure optimal use of digital devices and content, interoperability is key.

Access Access to the internet or digital content should be made easy and affordable and not bound to excesive restrictions or controls. Means should be put in place to guarantee the technical availability of network systems, Users should be able to aquire access rights under reasonable conditions They should be granted a certain amount of flexibility to hande their digitaly acquired content.

Conclusions Regulation of consumer rights across the new markets, goods and services with the revision of the consumer law aquis and the recast of the copyright acquis is needed.

Concrete measures The inclusion of technical codes (DRM) in unfair contract directive to enble consumer protection authorities to intervene against unfair terms if the terms are code rather than contract based The producers direct liability to facilitate redress in cross border e-commerce Resale right of digitaly purchased products Unit pricing for services Inclusion of sofware and data in the scope of consumer sales directive

Conclusions/2 A clear right to copy legally obtained copyrighted works for private use, in particular for back-up copies and format –shifting An end to regioanl coding (zoning) of DVDs, electronic games, audio books, music, and other digital material, A DRM observatory to monitor and enforce interoperability, No criminlization of consumers in the current enforcement directive of IP