In the news

Some of the interesting reads we found in the news from last week:

Five misleading pricing tactics to avoid in sales (V. Crowe in Which?) - warns which pricing offers may be misleading considering the rulings of the UK's Advertising Standards Agency from last year

How Airbnb's Tech Is Impacting People's Fundamental Human Rights (L. Coulman in Forbes) - more specifically the right to housing

Blue Planet has "huge impact" on shopper behaviour, finds report (L. Wells in Talking Retail) - Waitrose study shows more sustainable behaviour patterns of consumers and what impacts them

Press digest

Press digest

Sharing economy

Euractive reports (see here) that the European Commission delayed the publication of its guidelines on sharing economy from March until mid-2016. The guidelines are expected to clarify the legal position of the online platforms and the scope of application of the Services Directive, the E-Commerce Directive and consumer acquis. The legal position of online platforms is also currently being evaluated by the CJEU in two cases concerning Uber (see C-434/15 and C-526/15).

Social Media

Facebook is under investigation in Germany for the potential abuse of its dominant position in the social networking area that would consist of gathering excessive amount of data from its users, without giving them a choice to use the service otherwise (see here and here). The standard terms and conditions of Facebook could thus also be challenged, in this respect, as unfair.

Also Tinder's practices have been questioned by consumer organizations, in countries such as Norway, Slovenia, the Netherlands. Tinder's T&Cs reserve the right for the company to repurpose user-generated data even after the account is deactivated (permanent deletion is impossible!) by the user. This data could include even personal photos. Other terms in the Tinder's T&Cs would also fail the unfairness test under the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (e.g. setting the US Texas law as the applicable law). (see here)

Healthy food

At a conference in Amsterdam, most MS and some stakeholders agreed to work together to further reduce salt, saturated fat and sugar content in food products (see here).

Within the EU Parliament MEPs have endorsed in the plenary new fruit and milk scheme. The existing milk scheme for schools will be enriched by new rules on fruit and vegetable. The aim is to increase school children access to fresh products, as well as to improve their education on healthy eating (see here).

Press digest

Consumer Products & Sustainability

Some of the recent press articles express concerns that some of popular consumer products will be soon disappearing from the market if they do not meet new European requirements on efficiency and sustainability set by the Ecodesign Directive. (Europe's ban on 'wasteful' gadgets - doest it cost or save?) 

Another article points out to the decreased life span of consumer electronic products, where wasteful consumption of goods may result from the consumer's need to update their products to newer, better versions more often (Lifespan of consumer electronics is getting shorter, study finds). 

You may also read in recent press more about the problems of marketing of sustainable products. While some researchers discovered that consumer care about e.g. environmental impact of their purchases, this often still doesn't influence their purchasing behaviour. Could this be explained by the fact that consumers don't see what's in it for them to change their decision-making to reflect sustainability trends? (The problem with sustainability marketing? Not enough me, me, me)

Customer service & consumer information

Interesting findings of two studies on customer service in the UK have been discussed in Forbes by Adrian Swinscoe (Is Customer Service Going to Get Worse Before It Gets Better?). Tentative conclusions that could be drawn from this article are that while customer services seems to be improving, the improvement may be too slow for the dramatic raise in consumer expectations as to what level of customer service they should be receiving.

Speaking of customer services, some banks are considering to start texting their customers that it may be in their interest to switch a financial service provider, lower balance levels, avoid overdraft charges, etc. This may be the result of the reported inefficiency of bank statements that consumers currently receive. (British watchdog tells banks to text time-poor customers)

Are the European institutions looking for a way out from the promises they have made to deliver roaming-free phone services to Europeans in 2015? This is the subject of an article discussed in Deutsche Welle (Europeans free to 'roam if you want to' - but without phones, without data).

Press digest

Food

An interesting article in Newsweek on food consumption in the EU, health concerns as well as environmental issues related to our eating habits: Why Europeans Should Be Paying More for Their Food.

Electronic payments

Forbes addresses the opposition of European consumers supported by the American lobby toward the newly agreed on EU plans to cap interchange fees for electronic payment transactions. Apparently, similar laws previously adopted in the US didn't lead to any savings for the consumers but only contributed to raising products' prices: EU's Plan To Implement Interchange Fee Caps Will Raise Costs for Consumers. Interestingly, BEUC supports the change: EU deal struck to curb card transaction fees.

The European Banking Authority published its guidelines on the security of Internet payments in December 2014 (see here) that are to apply at the latest as of 1st of August 2015. Payment Service Providers will have to among other strengthen the consumer authentication process online to prevent fraud. Guidelines to strengthen requirements for the security of internet payments.

Energy efficiency of household appliances

New EU rules on how to save energy on the consumption and use of household appliances started binding as of 1 January. These rules require that household appliances switch to a stand by mode, requiring lower energy consumption after a short period of inactivity. The average saving on electricity per year for a household should amount to ca 30 GBP. E.g.: Tepid coffee anyone?..., Smart TVs will have to switch themselves OFF overnight... .

Apple

Apple has adopted its terms and conditions for European consumers that fall in line with the Consumer Rights Directive. Contrary to customers e.g. in the US, European consumers of e.g. iTunes are granted the 14-day right of withdrawal from a digital purchase, except when they purchase digital gift cards that have been redeemed in this period. E.g.: Apple gives EU consumers refund option for apps, music. While the Directive allows for already consumed digital content to be excluded from the application of the right of withdrawal Apple doesn't seem to introduce such a distinction. Apple's Lenient Return Policy in Europe for Digital Purchases Draws Ire of Developers.

Press digest

Cloud computing

New research suggests that 72% of European cloud users still are not able to answer any questions as to where their data is being transferred to, which means that even if they have been informed about this by their cloud service providers, this information clearly has not reached them. (see Many cloud systems 'not meeting EU data protection rules')

Mobile banking and mobile advertising

The European Banking Authority is consulting its new guidelines for providing more security to online payments market. The new guidelines of the European Banking Authority so far correspond to the rules of the EU Payment Services Directive. The question is whether it makes sense to adopt them as such as of August 2015 or whether to strengthen them already in the anticipation of the new PSD2. (New payment security guidelines to apply to online retail from August 2015) A brief summary of a current EU regulatory landscape with respect to mobile banking and payments may be found here: FCA thematic review - mobile banking and payments September 2014.

 Another article presents well how the use of smartphones influences modern advertising strategies. (3 Truths About Mobile Advertising In The Era Of Hyper-Connectivity)

 

Morality & consumers

The Archbishop of Bukavu and President of the Provincial Assembly of Bishops of Bukavu and Kindu addresses the European Parliament and other European institutions to guarantee that the resources used in consumer goods are not linked to human right violations and conflicts. (EU must give assurances on the morality of trade in natural resources)

Consumer behaviour

Interesting article on what went wrong with the consumer culture/ consumer image. (Viewpoint: How the consumer dream went wrong) Another survey shows us that at least in the US trust of consumers in using their credit cards have diminished recently; is it turn to popularize fingerprint-protected credit cards? (Data Breaches Are Affecting Consumer Behaviour and Trust in Credit Cards...)

Press digest

Telecommunication

The European Commission announces not to further regulate fixed telephone lines, since the market moved towards mobile and online telecommunication. (Europe says goodbye to fixed line regulation, hello to mobile era)

Tobacco Products Directive

UK e-cigarette manufacturer, Totally Wicked, challenges the validity of art. 20 of the Tobacco Products Directive at the CJEU, claiming that e-cigarettes should not be regulated as "tobacco related products" if they don't contain tobacco. (E-cig manufacturer wins right to challenge Brussels in EU courts; Totally Wicked vs. the EU's tobacco directive; First e-cig TV adverts from next month)

EU Data Protection and ePrivacy rules

Worries are being expressed about strengthening existing data protection rules even when businesses do not seem to be able to hold to currently existing ones (EU set to strengthen data protection laws). Data Protection Authorities across the EU are currently stepping up enforcement of the compliance with the existing EU data protection rules, by conducting a widespread cookie sweep (Are you ready? The EU "Cookie Sweep" is upon us). Other sources report widespread non-compliance of cloud-based storage service providers with the existing EU data protection rules (Most cloud apps flout EU data protection rules - study).

Tourism sector

TUI Travel argues in the UK for more support to be given to the reform of the Package Travel Directive and the Regulation No 261/2004 on air passenger rights. (TUI Travel calls on UK government to support the travel and tourism sector at home and abroad)

Competition

European booksellers plead with the European Commission and BEUC to set up investigation into the monopoly position of Amazon in the online book market, which harms European consumers by depriving them of a rich and diversified online book offering. (Booksellers raise Amazon monopoly concerns with European Commission)

Health claims

The new rules on food labelling (EU Regulation 1169/2011 on food information to consumers) are to enter into force as of December 2014 (nutrition information as of December 2016). Especially the sport nutrition sector may have to invest time and money to adjust the labels of their products to the new rules. While this regulation forces producers to be very specific in listing ingredients of their products, it may be even more difficult for the producers to justify placement of easy claims on how certain products may boost energy etc. (which are also regulated by Regulation 1924/2006). (Claim, set and match)

Consumer behaviour

Two new survey results have been published showing us growing trends of consumer online shopping habits. (UK leads European online shopping; Northern European web shoppers spent €1,780 each in 2013) In the meantime, Facebook sets up a new division - Facebook IQ - to try to understand consumer behaviour better... (Facebook forms new unit to study consumer behaviour).