OECD summit takes on consumer rights

NEWS Consumer associations from more than 100 countries gather in Paris this week to fight for the rights of consumers online. The summit is organised by the consumer policy committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Its primary message is that guidelines for protecting consumers online are badly overdue. The committee has spent the last two years developing its own guidelines, which it hopes to finalise at the summit. In addition, the OECD committee has just completed a survey exploring consumer experiences online. The survey, funded by the European Union, questioned consumers from eleven countries and found that one in ten goods ordered online are never received. More information can be found at the Consumer International Web site at http://www.oneworld.org/consumers .