The Public Voice in Electronic Commerce
La place du citoyen dans le commerce électronique

OECD  Paris - October 11th, 1999
OCDE  Paris - 11 Octobre1999

Presentation from
Philippa Lawson

What's Next? Consumer Protection after the OECD Guidelines
Speaking Notes - Philippa Lawson

1. We need first to be clear on what our goal is. Our goal is not simply to promote electronic commerce as a way of improving economic opportunity and choice - that, our business colleagues are doing very well. We, the public voice, recognize that the social and economic transformations brought about by electronic commerce may not all be positive, and that the public interest lies not in promoting a particular mode of commerce over others, but rather in maximizing the benefits (e.g., improving worldwide access to the Internet) and minimizing the costs (e.g., socioeconomic dislocation, privacy invasion, barriers to consumer redress) of an inevitable market development.

Electronic commerce is happening; we don't need to promote it. Our goal, in respect of consumer protection, should therefore be to minimize the consumer problems associated with ecommerce. It is in the interests of both business and consumers to focus on this goal.

2. In this context, the OECD Guidelines are just one piece of a much larger puzzle, a first step on the way toward a truly consumer-friendly electronic marketplace. Much more work still needs to be done.

3. Gaps remain in the OECD Guidelines, largely as a result of the compromise that was necessary to achieve consensus on this document. A critical gap is on the issue of jurisdiction: will consumers be able to rely upon the laws and courts of their own country with respect to electronic transactions that they conducted in that country? Another gap involves the failure to set out consumer rights and liabilities in the event that the merchant does not comply with the Guidelines (e.g., fails to provide full or accurate information, fails to provide a reasonable opportunity to cancel or correct an error in the order, or simply fails to deliver).

4. There are a number of challenges ahead, including:
a) finding the right mixture of legislation and self-regulation in the implementation of these Guidelines;
b) dealing with a likely proliferation of certification schemes and reliability marks - who is the consumer to trust?
c) developing international standards of consumer protection, so as to avoid the creation of "consumer fraud havens, or trade disputes over the legitimacy of national consumer protection laws; and
d) ensuring that authentication and security mechanisms respect consumer privacy.

5. We have a number of tasks ahead in order to achieve our goal of minimizing consumer problems in the electronic marketplace. We must:

In addition, we need: The time is ripe for an international (ISO?) initiative in this respect, so as to avoid marketplace confusion (and its potentially damaging effect on electronic commerce) due to a proliferation of self-regulatory schemes of varying effectiveness, to build consumer confidence in this new medium, and more importantly, to ensure that such confidence is deserved.