UNCTAD e-commerce Week 2017: Putting people at the heart of the digital economy

To mark UNCTAD e-commerce week (24-28 April 2017), Consumers International’s Director General Amanda Long outlines the need for a fairer and more inclusive digital economy that is built on consumer protection and trust.

UNCTAD e-commerce Week: Amanda Long speaks at high-level panel on
'Digital Transformation for all'

It goes without saying that people are at the heart of digital transformation. People as consumers, as citizens, as families, friends and employees, as students or as business owners.

For many people, e-commerce is the gateway to the digital world and the wealth of social and economic opportunities it provides. It is where we buy and compare products, transfer our money and savings, set up and maintain online businesses. And for those who are only now gaining access to the internet e-commerce is likely to be their first online interaction.

In recent years, the global e-commerce industry has seen an explosive pattern of growth. Total e-commerce sales generated around $1 trillion in 2012 and this total is now thought to be close to $1.9 trillion annually - almost doubling in just four years.

Yet whilst these figures give us a sense of the enormous potential that the digital economy could have for consumers and businesses across the globe, to fully embrace the benefits, we must create a digital world that works for everyone, everywhere.

The many faces of e-commerce

By taking a look at just some of the wonderful examples of how people are using e-commerce, it is clear to see why diversity and participation are so important:

• In Uganda, young people with innovative business ideas are being granted access to crowdsourced loans online through the Youth Empowerment scheme. [1]
• Artisan producers in Morocco use online platforms like Anao to sell products direct to customers around the world. Co-operatives like the Women Weavers of Morocco eliminate the need for the middleman and so increase profits. [2]
• Start-up business like the SafeMoto app in Rwanda are combatting the issue of road accidents, 80% of which involve mototaxis. The app scores mototaxi drivers for safety using telematic software on their smartphones. Customers can clearly see who are the bad drivers, and opt for a safer ride thus driving demand for safer transport. [3]  

In all of these examples we see the empowerment of consumers through the creation of new services and jobs, new markets and growth.

There is so much more, however, that still needs to be done before we have a digital world that works for everyone. With only 50% of the world currently online, there are still many consumers who are missing out on the power of e-commerce. According to the World Bank’s Digital Dividends report, only 15% of the world’s population have access to high-speed broadband and nearly 2 billion people do not own a mobile phone, leaving them unable to fully participate in the digital economy.

It is vital that we find the right balance between e-commerce that works for businesses and consumers. To do this, we must strive for digital transformation that is built on consumer trust and participation.

So how do we get it right?

Ensuring that everyone has their say. Yesterday I was on the UNCTAD e-commerce Week high-level panel on ‘Digital Transformational for all’. The event included talks from Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba Group as well as politicians, entrepreneurs, representatives’ from civil society and academia.

Another exciting announcement this week was the launch of UNCTAD’s ‘e-Trade for All’ online platform. This innovative online information hub will connect developing countries with potential partners and donors to empower them to make the most of e-commerce as a powerful driver of development.

We must follow the superb example set by UNCTAD’s e-commerce week and continue to involve a multitude of voices and opinions on the journey to digital transformation and progress. Let’s listen to consumers, producers, employees, prosumers and business owners about their experiences online, their expectations, needs and concerns. What does trust and confidence look like to them and how do we design it in?

Breaking the assumption that consumer protection stifles innovation. It won’t. In fact, careful design and safeguards to improve people’s confidence is essential if we want to bring everyone along on the journey to digital transformation and growth. We need to pay attention to social, economic, cultural and personal impacts on people and enterprises. If we don’t we risk creating a digital world where people are either left behind or lose their faith in the digital products and services available to them.

Making the most of international cooperation and connection. Building a trusted digital world can’t be done by one single entity, because we are all connected. Connectivity is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we can connect to new markets, new products, our friends, new investments. On the other hand, when everyday things like payments mess up, or updates slow down a device, or when uncanny decisions are made about us based on our habits, it erodes our faith in the other amazing things that we can do with it.

So we need to make the most of the positive nature of connectivity. These connections across sectors, borders and segments mean that international organizations like UNCTAD are more important than ever. The UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection, for example, were updated last year to reflect the changing digital landscape for consumers. They show how together international bodies can create sound principles for consumers, certainty for businesses, and set a marker for good business practice in a changing world.

By working together, we can ensure the e-commerce industry is a driver of greater prosperity and equality for consumers across the globe.

1 - Mushana E SACCO Uganda Ltd. 2016. ‘Uganda Youth Economic Empowerment’. Fire Africa. Online link http://www.fireafrica.org/projects/projects/view/1057

2 - Boots, A. 2015, ‘Anou Connects Moroccan Weavers to World Market’, Fair Observer. Online link: https://www.fairobserver.com/region/middle_east_north_africa/anou-connects-moroccan-weavers-to-world-market-12804/

3 - Mulligan, G. 2016. ‘The Sharing Economy Takes Off in Africa’. This is Africa a Global Perspective. Online link: http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/News/Sharing-economy-takes-off-in-Africa?ct=true

The process for the revision of the UN Guidelines enters a definitive stage

It is a crucial period for CI’s work to ensure global consumer guidelines are updated to meet new challenges, CI consumer policy expert Antonino Serra Cambaceres says. 

The global consumer movement faces a big challenge. We have to convince governments to support our United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection (UNGCP) proposals.

It is a complex task and time is of the essence. Governments, more specifically government missions accredited to UNCTAD, hold the fate of this process in their hands.

Therefore, the coordinated work we have to do will be essential to obtain their support.

We can ensure the Guidelines remain the global benchmark for consumer protection - and we have an obligation to reflect the needs and aspirations of millions of consumers worldwide.

If we work in a coordinated manner, this effort will certainly bear fruit.

It’s important to look back on how we arrived at this point.

In 2013, CI presented a proposal which was developed with input from its Members.

In this proposal, we identified issues that needed new guidelines - financial services, e-commerce and energy among others - as well as those in which it was necessary to adapt existing guidelines.

Since then CI continued to participate in the review process and sent responses to the four working groups that were created in 2013 – namely  Financial Services, Electronic Commerce, Implementation and Other Issues.

In these responses we reaffirmed the points that we felt should be updated.

This first stage of this work ended on August 15 when UNCTAD released a report called "Report on the modalities for the review of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection".

The publication of this report marked the second stage of the process. UNCTAD has requested all stakeholders - governments, international organisations, civil society groups – comment on the report so that work groups can develop concrete proposals.

This means that from now until October 2014 working groups will identify areas and issues on which there is some consensus to progress the update of the Guidelines.

That’s why this second stage is very important. UNCTAD expects proposed revised texts of the new guidelines, which will take the form of a resolution, will be discussed at a meeting to be held in Geneva, in January 2015.

The draft resolution will be due in November this year, for further comments before January’s meeting.

The 7th UN Review Conference, to be held in July 2015, will approve the draft resolution to be submitted to the UN General Assembly for adoption.

Will consumer rights be at the heart of global sustainable development policy?

CI’s Head of Advocacy Justin Macmullan, outlines why the inclusion of consumer rights is fundamental for the future of sustainable development.

In 2015 the UN General Assembly has the task of agreeing a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will build on the momentum created by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Like the MDGs, the SDGs will represent a major international agreement and have the potential to influence development policy for years to come.

Good progress has already been made and a zero draft sets out seventeen goals with a number of targets under each.

But there is something missing. Consumer rights are not mentioned. CI believes this is a serious omission and we are campaigning for consumer rights to be put back into sustainable development.

The missing link

 

The zero draft does include a goal on Sustainable Consumption and Production (something CI has long campaigned for and strongly supports), however this is largely about supporting and promoting environmental and ethical consumption and, as important as this is, it doesn’t address the wide range of issues that consumers struggle with.

Apart from sustainable consumption and production, there are also many other goals and targets in the draft that consumer organisations would recognise and support – including poverty eradication, promoting an efficient and equitable economy, water, energy and health to name just a few.

Why consumer rights matter

The consumer perspective is important for two reasons.

Firstly consumer protection is fundamental to the implementation of many of the other goals that have been proposed and “implementation” is important. As we have seen with the Millennium Development Goals, it is one thing to develop a set of ambitious goals but it is another to deliver on them.

However consumer protection is also an important issue in its own right. Any full definition of sustainable development should include consumer protection.

After all, people’s ability to consume, the consumption choices they have available to them and whether they are treated fairly as consumers, fundamentally effects the quality of their lives and the lives of those around them.

To give just three examples of why consumer protection is important:

• The first of the proposed SDGs is to ‘End poverty everywhere'. To achieve this poor and vulnerable people need to be sure that they can spend and save their limited income safely, yet they are often amongst the most exploited in the marketplace.
• The third of the proposed SDGs calls for ‘Attaining healthy lives for all'. This means that consumers need access to healthcare but also protection against unsafe products and services that cause ill health, injury or death.
• The eighth of the proposed SDGs calls for 'Sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth'. It is hard to see how this can be achieved unless consumers are represented and empowered to play their part in the economy.

Similar points can be made in relation to almost every one of the proposed Goals.

Putting consumer rights back into sustainable development

 

For this reason Consumers International is campaigning for implementation of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection to be added as a target under the proposed goal relating to ‘inclusive societies and access to justice’ or ‘means of implementation’.

This is a practical and realistic proposal. The UN Guidelines are internationally agreed and they have proved their value over more than 30 years.

Through CI’s State of Consumer Protection report we have also demonstrated that it is possible to measure their implementation (though we look forward to seeing what more can be done in this area with the right resources).

The process of negotiating the SDGs is already well advanced, so please join CI’s call for consumer protection to be included in the SDGs by contacting your Minister for Foreign Affairs.

You can also watch my video message on these goals - feel free to share.

UNGCP: Positive signs on the long road to change

CI's Head of Asia Pacific and Middle East Indrani Thuraisingham reflects on the outcome of the UN Guidelines meeting.

The UN meeting on the review of its Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP) concluded on 12 July in Geneva.  Essentially the result is positive, but the process from this point forward will be more drawn out than one would have hoped.

The UNCTAD Secretariat, led by Mr Hassan Qaqaya indicated that this was the ‘second and final’ ad hoc meeting in the sequence running up to the revision. Four working groups established (all including CI) at the conclusion of the  meeting will carry the work forward on revisions to the text during the coming year.

Ultimately, however, the UNCTAD Secretariat will finalise the text by July 2014, before passing it through another UN Conference (this one dedicated to restrictive business practices) scheduled for 2015.

Then, in theory, this UN review body could decide to forward the draft to the UN General Assembly for approval, but we have no input into that.

It is not an ideal pathway for the Guidelines, because the UN review body will be composed of competition policy experts, not consumer protection experts. 

Representatives from the Member states were very assertive in the meeting about wanting a wide range of issues included in the revision.

The initial emphasis on financial services and e-commerce would, if left unchallenged, have left the bulk of the Guidelines untouched since 1985, thus defeating much of the purpose of updating them.

Most delegations (with the exception of the US) argued in favour of including data protection when considering amendments to the e-commerce provisions. The Conference went on to consider a whole list of other issues that will be taken forward by a dedicated Working Group.

CI is in a very strong position as, together with our Members, we have already drafted detailed positions. We are therefore able to operate on the basis of present positions with relatively little extra drafting work.

Our efforts will be mainly in arguing for specific terms of reference for the four working groups that were established:

• financial services
• e-commerce
• ‘other issues’ (which includes data protection, cross-border trade , tourism, collective redress, integration with other governmental policies, public services including water and energy and the principle of universal service, transport, real estate (housing), access to knowledge, and abusive advertising)  
• a proposed ‘UN Standing Commission for Consumer Protection’ (a key demand in our original recommendations).

Life and death consumer issues are not a ‘laundry list’

CI Senior Policy Advisor Robin Simpson reports from the UNCTAD Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Consumer Protection discussing the revision of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection

To start at the end, CI is pleased with the initial outcome from our meetings on the revision of the UN Guidelines forConsumer Protection (UNGCP). We were broadly content with the outcomes regarding financial services (FS) and e-commerce that have been trailed from the start by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (the ‘guardians’ of the Guidelines) as the two major issues for incorporation into the UNGCP.

But our position has been consistent that these two issues should not be incorporated to the exclusion of other pressing issues. Neither should they be defined narrowly; they should include, for example, data protection, digital products, and financial remittances.

Inserting only FS and e-commerce would leave the bulk of the Guidelines untouched from 1985 until the next revision in …when? 2030? So we are pleased that the conference also agreed to consider a list of other issues which includes data protection, cross-border trade (still very vague), tourism, collective redress (also called ‘class actions’) integration with other governmental policies, public services including water and energy and the principle of universal service, transport, real estate (housing) access to knowledge, and abusive advertising.

Furthermore, after a pointed intervention from CI, the conference also accepted to look at the idea of a standing commission of the UN to scrutinise the application of the UN Guidelines at national level.

We have volunteered for working groups on FS, e-commerce, ‘other issues’ and the UN Commission. So a good result, right? Still too early to say. We await with interest the UNCTAD report on the meeting and the interpretation of the proceedings by the French presidency which chaired the meeting superbly. 

Despite the diplomatic language, there was an unspoken divide. The richer countries argued for restricting the revision to the two preselected issues. The rest of the delegations pushed back, arguing either for other issues that appeared in the eventual list, or, as we did, for a more comprehensive approach with nothing ruled out at this stage.

Not that the rich countries were entirely in agreement with each other. The US and Germany were poles apart on the inclusion of data protection (Germany) or its exclusion (US). But both wanted the overall scope kept down, with the US, perhaps as a slip of the tongue, describing the list of other issues as a ‘laundry list’ and suggesting that the revision process should concentrate on ‘mainstream’ consumer issues.

We objected to the term ‘laundry list’ which, we said: “belittles the issues involved. Indeed the entire UNGCP could be described as a laundry list. The whole point of the UNGCP is that it is a comprehensive document, which spans the entire horizon of consumer affairs. Instead of seeing the breadth of issues as a problem we should embrace it as a strength.”

We cannot accept that such life and death issues as universal access to water and electricity supplies, for example, are seen as a rather annoying distraction from ‘mainstream issues’ such as FS and e-commerce. For such was the tone of many official delegations – “how can we possibly deal with all these topics?” was a common refrain. In fact, the Guidelines make very brief reference to each sub-sector, and we have demonstrated in our amended version how this can be done. 

We must bear in mind what the Guidelines mean to our Members. They are seen as setting the standard for consumer protection worldwide. Sadly, the tone of too many participants was that this was a chore that had to be disposed of with a minimum of fuss. As we said in debate: “If the breadth of the Guidelines were considered in 1985 the way it was being discussed today, the UNGCP would never have been drafted at all."

The UNGCP: Bridging the gap between governments and consumer associations

CI's Head of Asia Pacific and Middle East Indrani Thuraisingham looks at CI's involvement in the revision of the UNGCP and reflects on the importance of the Guidelines

At this very moment, CI is preparing its suggested revisions to the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP). This is an exciting time for all of us.

 

As coordinator for CI’s Consumer Justice and Protection programme, I have been leading the revision process. I am looking forward to heading our delegation to the UN’s special session on consumer protection to be held by the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Competition Law and Policy on 11 and 12 July 2013.

At this meeting, we will discuss a draft proposal for the revision of the UNGCP. UNCTAD has sent a questionnaire to help consumer organisations and relevant international organisations (including CI) to take stock of existing consumer protection legislation, which will serve as the basis for preparing the draft report for the revision of the UNGCP.

To inform CI’s suggested revision, we conducted a global survey on the state of consumerprotection at national levels in December last year. We received 72 responses from our Members in 60 countries. Following this, we organised a global consultation with our Members on the Guidelines, including a face-to-facemeeting in Delhi in February this year and online web consultation on the contents of the Guidelines. 

CI’s written submission to UNCTAD is due by 21 June and we are in the midst of collating more than 100 comments received from CI Members based on CI’s existing policy positions. We plan to put forward our proposed ‘best/ideal content’ for the UN Guidelines in addition to highlighting members’  “intense frustration” of  weak enforcement of consumer protection measures already in place.

We will be setting out two levels of recommendations in our submission to UNCTAD:

1) Recommendations that set out which issues we want addressed in the revision.

2) Specific proposed text for financial services and e-commerce.

CI’s proposed recommendations will be presented as part of the discussions at the Expert Meeting on Consumer Protection on 11-12 July 2013 in Geneva. We have requested that our Members write to their national delegations who will be attending this Geneva meeting  to ask for support on what CI wants from the UN Guidelines.

The UNGCP is a framework and an important element of consumer protection around the world. The UNGCP have been rather successful in bridging the gap between governments and consumer associations. Indeed, that is why we take this process seriously.

Region’s consumer advocates lead the way on consumer protection

CI’s Head of Asia Pacific and the Middle East Indrani Thuraisingham reports on the opening of the new Middle East hub office, CI’s involvement with the UNGCP, and more.

CI and its members are beginning the process of providing input to the United Nations Committee for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for the revision of the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP).

We are calling on UNCTAD to amend the Guidelines rather than develop a completely new document as we believe there is much in the existing document that is still valuable and that they have served well as the reference point for consumer protection since 1985.

Among our requests, is that the Guidelines are brought up-to-date in light of new developments in technology and business practices and new consumer concerns.

World Consumer Rights Day is just around the corner and this year’s theme - ‘Consumer Justice Now!’ - reflects the importance CI is placing on its global Consumer Justice and Protection programme (coordinated from our office here in Malaysia).

CI has developed a member survey to map consumer protection measures across the globe.

The results of the survey are being used, along with the outcomes from a consultation meeting of CI members and experts in February 2013, to inform UNCTAD of our recommendations and suggested amendments to the Guidelines. If you are a CI member, and have not completed your survey, please do so as it is vital that we have input from all of our members.

Still on the subject of UNCTAD, there is exciting news to report from CI member Hong Kong Consumer Council (HKCC). Connie Lau, former CEO of HKCC, is going to chair UNCTAD’s First International Advisory Group of Experts on Consumer Protection in July 2013.

Connie is a staunch advocate for strengthened consumer protection across the world for consumer welfare and justice. It will indeed be exciting times. 

Finally, I am delighted to say that CI’s hub office for the Middle East in Muscat, Oman has become functional. Recruitment of staff to coordinate CI’s work in the Middle East region is finalized and staff are set to begin work.

I’d like to express my deepest appreciation to the Oman Public Authority on Consumer Protection Oman for its support through the cooperation programme signed on 2 October with CI in New York.

I am confident that, with the establishment of the Middle East office, CI will be able to expand its membership and have a strong voice from the Middle East for better consumer protection.

I am looking forward to these landmark activities scheduled to take place next year and would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

An historic opportunity for the consumer rights movement

CI Director General Helen McCallum reflects on Rio+20, supermarkets, and a new chapter for international consumer rights.

It may not have made a mark in many people’s diaries, but 12 and 13 July could perhaps go down as the most important two days for the global consumer rights movement in more than 13 years. 

Over these two days, the UN formally announced its Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was to begin consultation on the first revision of the UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection (UNGCP) – the first since 1999.

CI and its members were an integral part of the launch of the UNGCP in 1985, and the 1999 revision, which saw sustainable consumption directly referenced for the first time.

We plan to be right at the heart of the new revisions too. We are now in discussions with UNCTAD to officially recognise CI as a stakeholder in the consultation.

These discussions could not have come at a more relevant time. We have seen the worldwide explosion of digital consumption and the wholesale collapse of faith in financial consumer protection since the Guidelines were last opened up. 

There was no Google in 1999; Facebook was still five years away; mobile phone penetration in Africa was in its infancy; and no one had ever heard of iTunes or online privacy. The credit crisis, home seizures and multi-billion dollar bank bail-outs were nearly 10 years away. 

That’s why CI is pushing for financial services and consumer rights in the digital age to be fully reflected in the revised guidelines. This will be a momentous undertaking. I look forward to working with CI member organisations and other stakeholders across the world to make sure it happens.

Beyond this UNGCP revision, CI remains busy on several fronts. We’ve been taking stock of the outcomes of Rio+20 - a failure in many ways, but with some encouraging commitments to move forward on sustainable consumption. At the very least, governments are beginning to understand sustainability as a mainstream consumer rights issue, as well as a development concern. 

While we assess how best to take advantage of this over the coming months, it’s certainly worth taking a look at our new project to support sustainable consumption awareness-raising in developing countries. In my view, these are practical projects aiming to make a real impact on consumer behaviour. Check out our new Facebook group dedicated to these green action initiatives.

Also, take a look at a great selection of supermarket infographics from CI and CHOICE Australia, taken from our latest report which asks whether consumers are getting a fair deal from supermarkets.

And finally, if you’ve not already seen it, please take a look at our fabulous 90-second video guide to what CI does: Your Rights, Our Mission. You can watch it and share it below.

CI to contribute to revision of UN’s consumer protection guidelines

Indrani Thuraisingham, Head of CI Office for Asia Pacific and the Middle East, reports on activities from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

I was very pleased to be part of CI’s delegation to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recently. 

This was an important moment for consumer rights - when CI was named to give input into the revision of the UN’s Guidelines on Consumer Protection (UNGCP).

The decision to revise the guidelines was the major outcome of the UNCTAD Ad Hoc Expert Meeting on Consumer Protection: The interface between competition and consumer policies. Its proposals are to be tabled at the General Assembly in July 2014. 

The CI delegation to UNCTAD included myself as the head of the Asia Pacific and Middle East Regional Office and lead on the global coordination of CI’s Consumer Justice and Protection priority programme; Jeremy Malcolm who leads CI’s Consumers in the Digital Age priority programme; and Robin Simpson, CI’s senior policy officer from London who spoke on financial services, another of CI’s priority programme areas. 

We were accompanied by Connie Lau, retiring CEO of the Hong Kong Consumer Council who gave the key note address; and Pradeep Mehta from CI member CUTS India.

A number of ideas for areas in which the Guidelines could be improved were discussed, including the need to strengthen enforcement activities, and the addition of provisions on financial services, energy, consumer representation, and access to knowledge. 

CI also highlighted the need to add “access to basic needs” as part of the legitimate needs in Article 3 of the Guidelines as well as to have a clear definition of ”consumer” in terms of addressing the needs of poor and vulnerable consumers.
 
The agreed conclusions of the meeting specify that UNCTAD is to collaborate with CI, as well as with other relevant bodies such as the OECD, in developing the content of potential revisions.  

To this end, the next step in this process will be for CI to consult with its members on the areas that should be covered and to develop some suggested text for submission to UNCTAD that will be tabled at the upcoming 13th Intergovernmental Group of Experts (IGE) meeting in July 2013 during which the process of negotiations will begin and be approved by July 2014.

This is an exciting time. It means that all CI members will have the opportunity to comment and bring their experience in consumer rights to bear on the Guidelines. I for one look forward to being a part of this important step for consumer rights.

UN’s consumer protection guidelines must reflect the digital age

CI’s Jeremy Malcolm looks at why it’s imperative that the UNGCP include the rights of consumers in the digital age.

When the United Nation Guidelines on Consumer Protection (UNGCP) were last amended, the iPod had not yet been invented, Wikipedia would not exist for another couple of years (nor Facebook for another five), and a new PC had one-eighth as much memory as a modern smartphone.

This means that, remarkably, there is no global standard or benchmark that deals directly with the impact of the digital age on consumers.

Here's why this matters:

Say that when signing up to a legal music download service, a link to its terms and conditions of use is given. If you follow the link, you find 20 pages of small text, including a condition prohibiting you from making copies of the music you download, and another reserving the site’s right to change the terms and conditions without notice to you. 

You skim through the first few pages of this agreement and then proceed to sign up and pay your subscription.

Then, you download a few songs, and then copy them from your computer to your portable music player. 

Frustratingly, it seems that they are encrypted, but luckily you find a small programme online that you use to strip this encryption off, so that you can enjoy your music on the go.

Some days later, the site changes so that files are no longer downloadable, but can only be streamed live. This means that you can no longer play new downloads on your music player.

Some of the questions that arise are:

1. Are you bound by the terms and conditions (T&Cs), even if you didn't read all of them?
2. Are you allowed to copy songs that you purchased as a download onto your music player?
3. If so, are you also entitled to remove the encryption from the music files?
4. Is the site entitled to switch from a download to a streaming service?

The answers will of course depend on consumer law in your country. 

We believe that any modern consumer law should answer those questions as follows:

1. You should only be bound by the T&Cs if they were adequately brought to your attention - important terms can't be buried in 20 pages of small text.
2. Yes, you should be able to copy music that you have purchased online.
3. Yes, you should be able to de-encrypt if your purpose in doing so is simply to enable you to listen to the music.
4. No, the site should not switch its service without offering you a refund.

Through our Consumers in the digital age programme, we’re pushing for a global benchmark so that such consumer rights are seen as the international standard.   

That’s why we think that it’s about time that the UNGCP were updated for the digital age, to protect consumers in situations like those outlined above, and in many other novel situations involving digital goods and services, consumers as creators, and online communications.

This doesn't mean that the UNGCP are no longer working - on the contrary, they have stood up very well over the years; a testament to the hard work that went into developing them to begin with. But there are some areas that they don't clearly cover, and we have a plan to fill those gaps.

Whilst the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has only recently signalled its intention to review the UNGCP, CI is well ahead of the game. 

We have already come up with a set of proposed amendments to cover the rights of consumers in the digital age. These were developed by a CI member working group that was convened in January 2011 and released its final draft for a three-month public comment period in June the same year.

Amongst the proposed amendments, which are shown in their entirety at http://A2Knetwork.org/guidelines, are provisions that would:

• Prevent the removal of functions from digital products or services after purchase
• Support consumer access to and fair use of copyright works
• Set minimum standards for the privacy of consumers online
• Require product safety information and standards to be made available online

CI is now proceeding to supplement these suggested amendments with national level research, to demonstrate why they are important, and how they reflect some emerging best practices around the world. This research is being conducted by our members and partners in India, Brazil and South Africa, with smaller case studies having been contributed from South Korea and Canada.

The next step will be to integrate these proposals, along with other amendments that CI is still developing (such as on financial services), into the draft text that will be tabled before UNCTAD's members for consideration at their next meeting in mid 2013.

If we are fortunate, the UNGCP will soon be at the forefront of modern consumer policy again, providing a useful benchmark for policy makers around the world.

Financial services on the agenda at UNCTAD

Financial services—it’s complicated. And that’s why we need to ensure consumers are protected.  CI’s Robin Simpson urges inclusion of financial services in the UN’s Guidelines on Consumer Protection. 

At the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meeting in Geneva recently, CI made the case for inclusion of financial services in the Guidelines on Consumer Protection (UNGCP), including:

• universal access to basic financial services;
• better design and disclosure of information;
• mandatory requirements for comprehensibility of financial products; and
• representation of consumer interests in the governance of the sector, both regulation and redress.

 We believe that, where states have bailed out ailing banks, competition enquiries should be carried out to ascertain whether these assistance packages have increased concentration. This is sensitive territory for a conference whose agenda was dominated by competition issues.

We also called for measures to guarantee stability of deposits stronger than the diluted provisions that were included in the G20/OECD high level principles that we found too limited.

There was a strong measure of agreement in the hall that FS is not, or no longer, solely a rich country issue. Indeed, one of the encouraging aspects of the present troubled times is the emergence of innovative services such as branchless banking in developing countries, whose consumers report savings ratios far in excess of those of the OECD countries, between 30-40% of household income.

As CI board member Connie Lau of the Hong Kong Consumer Council pointed out, these dwarf the puny rates to be found in the first decade of this century in the US where some estimates show a negative rate in some years. 

Our colleague Sothi Racahagan from Malaysia made a clarion call for stronger regulatory action and Phil Evans from the UK Competition Commission made the strong case on behavioural grounds for FS not being treated like any other sector.

Complex products with long-term effects, the impacts of which will not be known for years to come, all add up to a dangerous cocktail of ingredients that require far stronger measures than we have seen so far.

Maybe inclusion of FS in the UNGCP will make some much-needed changes a reality.

Now for the hard part.