JOURNAL OF CONSUMER POLICY最新文献

The technological promise of recommender systems should not be misused by those with decisional power over the infrastructural, data, and knowledge resources needed for their design. The ideal of personalization should not mask self-serving optimization. Instead, we propose that people, not only in their capacity as consumers but, more generally, as democratic citizens, have a legitimate claim to ensure that very large online platforms (or VLOPs) respect their interests within optimization processes through the content policy strategies and recommendation technologies they employ. To this end, this paper argues for, and develops, a right to constructive optimization that promotes people's effective enjoyment of fundamental rights and civic values in digital settings. The argument is structured as follows. First, the paper strengthens the claim that the largest online platforms perform a public function (although this is not the only way such functions can be performed). Second, drawing from the philosophy of Iris Marion Young, the paper identifies self-determination and self-development as key values recommenders should promote as part of this crucial function under conditions of inclusivity, political equality, reasonableness, and publicity. After having critiqued the EU Digital Services Act's approach toward regulating the function recommenders hold, the right to constructive optimization is concretized as an alternative normative benchmark and used as an interpretative lens to enrich ongoing legal initiatives.

In June 2023, France adopted a new law to curb the negative impact of influencer marketing on its consumers. While it introduces some innovative provisions, the law mostly doubles down on legal prohibitions that could have been equally construed under existing consumer protection legislation. From this perspective, it can be argued that this law is an example of ban-it-harderism: a regulatory trend where lawmakers respond to perceived enforcement failures, not by addressing structural or institutional issues, but by enacting additional prohibitions that duplicate existing norms. Ban-it-harderism is problematic for at least two reasons. First, it often gives the false public impression that certain issues were not covered by regulation before the specific intervention. Second, it contributes to the overwhelming regulatory inflation seen at European and national levels on matters dealing with technology regulation and the digital market. This article discusses selected provisions from the French Influencer Law to contrast them with existing European consumer law and to critically reflect on its contributions to relevant legal frameworks.

The popularity of influencer marketing is ever growing. Based on parasocial relationships rooted in authenticity and relatability, the appeal of influencers is effectively used to promote commercial goods and services. This popularity is increasingly migrating outside of commercial advertising. In the past years, governments around the world have collaborated with influencers for public interest communication such as supporting wars, promoting Covid public health policies or financial literacy. Although entrenched in promoting the public good and facilitated by public funding, the dynamics of these collaborations remain very much unknown. Shedding light on how governments employ influencers can help us understand how commercial strategies shape the advertising of public goods as state propaganda. From a regulatory perspective, commercial advertising has been subject to a lot of rules relating to the content as well as the transparency of commercial messaging. Yet government communication-whether called propaganda, public service communication, or the advertising of public goods-has not been governed with the same level of clarity. This study explores comprehensive materials from 10 freedom of information requests on government influencer campaigns answered by the Dutch government between 2020 and 2024 (N = 1302 pages). Using qualitative content analysis, we focus on understanding the characteristics of advertising contracts between the government and the influencers in their service, in order to critically reflect on the transparency of the monetisation entailed by these transactions.

In this article, the authors identify and explore the phenomenon of consumer cyborgification and ask what the legal and ethical implications of this emerging trend are. They consider whether fundamental legal principles, concepts, and assumptions in various EU acts and directives are adequate to address these challenges or whether these need to be reassessed in light of novel forms of vulnerability. They also ask what alternatives might be suggested. In the era of the consumer Internet of Things (IoT), consumer expectations of privacy, security, and durability are changing. While the consumer uses of the IoT often revolve around improving efficiency (e.g., of the body, the home, the car) and enhancing experiences through datafication of our bodies and environments and personalization of services and interfaces, the power of IoT companies to influence consumer behaviours and preferences is increasing in part because the hybridization of humans and machines. Cyborgification allows our behaviours to be individually and continuously monitored and nudged in real time. Our bodies and minds are reflected back at us through data, shaping the narratives we tell about ourselves and our surroundings, and this is creating new lifeworlds and shaping our preferences, roles, and identities. This presents novel benefits, as well as risks in the potential exploitation of novel vulnerabilities. With technology under the skin, both metaphorically (in relation to products that become a sensory accessory to the body and influence the perception and physical reality of one's body and lifeworld) and literally (in the form of microchips, cybernetic implants, and biometric sensors and actuators), cyborg consumers are more vulnerable to manipulative practices, unfair contractual terms, automated decision-making, and to privacy and security breaches. Cyborg consumers are therefore more susceptible to damage, financial and physical, caused by defective products, low-quality services, and lax cybersecurity. Law, policy, and practice must go further than merely enhancing transparency and consent processes and prohibit practices and business models that are premised on manipulating the need to anticipate and manage the working of technologies under the skin, i.e., that which undermines consumer and public interests systematically. The law needs to be agile and responsive to the changes the IoT has established in the consumer-producer relationship. Consumer laws, including the contractual/consenting process itself, must be reviewed and reimagined to ensure more robust protections.

Some public health officials discourage smokers from using electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS, or “e-cigarettes”) as a cessation aid because ENDS use is positively correlated with smoking. Such correlation does not imply that the causal treatment effect of ENDS use on cessation from smoking is negative, however, due to selection bias. We estimate the treatment effect of ENDS use on cessation. After showing that ENDS use and smoking are positively correlated in data from Korea, we investigate selection bias and show that a tax increase and the government’s negative pronouncements regarding ENDS shifted ENDS use toward those smokers for whom cessation is less likely. After accounting for unobserved confounding characteristics of individuals with regression models for endogenous treatment effects, we find that the evidence suggests that ENDS promote cessation. The average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) is estimated with parametric and moment-based methods and is found to be in the range of 10.1 to 16.4 percentage points from copula models and 17.0 percentage points from a moment-based estimator. The ATET from the results preferred by formal model selection criteria is 16.2 percentage points. The Korean government’s discouragement of ENDS use by smokers may therefore create a massive lost opportunity to reduce smoking and improve public health.

The achievement of sustainability goals will take a joint effort and content creators could be one of the actors helping with reaching it. Reliable but relatable communication on sustainable lifestyles on social media could reach many consumers and contribute to changing their behaviour patterns. However, the content creators’ activities need to fit within certain parameters for the benefits to outweigh the costs. This article identifies three important parameters that regulation should safeguard: Relatability, reliability, and redress. A key reason why content creators have managed to establish themselves as influencers is that they are relatable. But content creators may not be able to ensure what they tell their followers is reliable. That in turn raises the question of who should be responsible for providing redress in cases of misstatements. Following the critical analysis of the European legal framework, this article considers the need for further adaptations to the current rules or even the adoption of new rules more strictly regulating sustainable activism on social media.

One of the most significant legal acts concerning the sale and management of insurance risk was issued on January 20, 2016, based on Directive (EU) 2016/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 January 2016 on insurance distribution (IDD Directive). The adoption of European IDD principles aims to enhance transparency in the operations of insurance distributors and improve the standards of their business practices. Its protective scope encompasses all individuals and entities involved in the sale of insurance products. The aim of the article is to ascertain the regulatory authorities’ impact on the insurance market, consideration of consumer protection, in light of the changes introduced by the IDD directive. The primary entities under examination, in the mentioned context of consumer protection, are distributors and supervisory authorities. The discussion includes an overview of the scale of the insurance market and its fundamental applications, as well as compliance within the framework of behavioural economics theory. Additionally, the paper addresses the aspect of threats posed to consumers by the analyzed changes in the European insurance distribution market. In this segment, the authors concentrate on the economic and social ramifications of IDD implementation for entities operating within the insurance market. The concluding section outlines the potential for development and the future prospects of financial intermediation concerning IDD utilization.

The European Union lacks comprehensive legislation pertaining to food supplements containing botanical or bioactive substances other than nutrients, resulting in disparate regulatory frameworks among European Member States. Previous studies predominantly focused on the doctrinal analysis of these diverse regulations at both European and national levels, offering limited insights into their practical implementation by governing bodies. This research endeavours to scrutinize administrative practices governing legislation on food supplements featuring botanical or other bioactive constituents, which are subject to varying approaches across Member States. Employing a combination of doctrinal and empirical legal research methodologies, this approach involved a meticulous examination of the regulatory landscape governing food supplements at both EU and Member State levels. Simultaneously, an empirical investigation, conducted through expert interviews, aimed to elucidate whether discrepancies among national legal systems translate into discernible variations in the operational strategies of competent authorities. Additionally, this empirical inquiry shed light on the efficacy of specific EU directives aimed at harmonizing food supplement regulations at the national level. These findings delineate a fragmented regulatory environment for botanical and bioactive food supplements across Member States. Noteworthy disparities were observed not only in national legislative frameworks but also in the enforcement practices of regulatory authorities. Union-level governance efforts in particular by adopting a mutual recognition approach to mitigate fragmentation proved ineffective. Consequently, this research underscores an urgent imperative to expedite the harmonization of regulations governing botanicals and other bioactive substances present in food supplements across the European Union.

The article examines the proliferation of short-term, unsecured credit offered by digital money lenders (DMLs) in Nigeria, with a focus on abusive debt collection practices such as unauthorised disclosure of personal information, the use of threats and the defamation of borrowers, often disregarding existing financial consumer safeguards. To balance the growth of digital lending with recognised consumer safeguards, the study employs a doctrinal research approach to assess consumer protection mechanisms within Nigeria’s legal and institutional framework. The article proposes several recommendations, including promoting consumer awareness, expanding judicial and administrative channels of reporting and redress, improving and publishing regulatory activities, introducing fair digital lending rules, employing Enforcement Technology to facilitate monitoring and redress, fostering industry collaboration in data sharing, expanding the scope of formal entities providing credit, simplifying access to formal credit and strengthening credit reporting. These measures aim to establish a sustainable, inclusive and empowering digital lending environment for all stakeholders.

Financial and digital inclusion are key consumer policy agendas for governments globally. Yet, despite the importance of online interfaces to manage finances and make payments, the link between financial and digital inclusion remains under-researched. This study analyses the link between digital and financial inclusion drawing on data from a survey conducted of 922 adults in UK in 2018. The results suggest that the active use of banking services depends on digital skills. The level of self-rated internet proficiency predicts a variety of ways in which consumers use financial services in the management of their finances, including contactless payments, bank transfers, and the use of multiple banking services. This holds even when controlling for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Conversely, household income is more important as a determinant than digital skills in checking account balance online. This possibly reflects that liquidity constrained consumers generally prefer to monitor their spending using cash as this provides more precise information on their spending and remaining balance.