[LINK] Drowning in Codes of Conduct

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Drowning in Codes of Conduct

15 March 2012

http://cyberlawcentre.org/onlinecodes/report.pdf
http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/drowning-codes-conduct


Australians face a complex, confusing and often inconsistent environment 
when it comes to regulating how businesses and consumers should conduct 
themselves online, a new report has found.

Drowning in Codes of Conduct .. is the first report to comprehensively 
analyse self regulatory codes of online conduct developed in Australia.

The report examines 16 Codes of Conduct relevant to Australian consumers’ 
online activity. 

It compares these codes against four 'Best Practice Guidelines' for codes 
from ASIC, ACCC, ACMA and the Office of the Australian Information 
Commissioner (formerly known as the Privacy Commissioner). 

It also maps their coverage over the top 50 websites visited by 
Australians and the top 19 ISPs.

Issues for consumers include:

* the very number of codes potentially applicable to an online 
transaction or issue: consumers and business would be challenged to 
identify them all

* the complexity of their overlapping coverage

* wide variations/inconsistency in language, procedure, remedies and 
robustness

* uncertainty about coverage and ‘jurisdiction’, including an often 
limited or non-existent capacity to involve dominant online service 
providers operating offshore

* patchy or very low sign-up by industry participants, and in some cases 
difficulty in ascertaining who is a ‘member’ of the code, and what this 
means

* inconsistent approaches to effective complaint handling

* inconsistent or undeveloped approaches to cross-referral to other codes 
or code bodies where an inquiry may be outside scope of the first code 
considered (to prevent ‘falling through the cracks'

* a tendency to focus on industry rather than consumer convenience in 
regulatory scheme design.

The report was launched in Melbourne today at the national Consumers 
Forum, celebrating 50 years of Consumer Rights, on World Consumer Rights 
Day.  Media contact: David Vaile, d.vaile at unsw.edu.au

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Cheers,
Stephen