The EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, has called for a legally binding set of standards to protect consumers who buy goods on the Internet.
Speaking at the European Parliament in Brussels, Mr Byrne said many electronic retailers had failed to address consumers' concerns about privacy, quality of service, misleading prices and the handling of complaints.
"The reality, as opposed to the rhetoric, of business-to-consumer electronic commerce is, to put it mildly, disappointing. If one were to concentrate only on the column centimetres in newsprint devoted to the subject, one could be forgiven for thinking that this area of modern day commerce was flourishing. Indeed, the opposite seems to be the case. We are confronted with what I certainly call the e-confidence barrier," he said.
The Commissioner predicted that, once euro notes and coins were introduced at the beginning of next year, increased price transparency could boost Internet sales. At present, goods bought over the Internet account for less than 1 per cent of total retail sales in the EU.
Mr Byrne expressed disappointment at the reluctance of electronic retailers to agree codes of good practice and said existing regulations could not meet the pace of change in the new economy. He suggested that an overarching regulatory framework could be complemented by self-regulation on the part of business and co-regulation involving Internet users.
But he stressed that any regulatory system should have a clear relationship to the legal framework to ensure that standards could be enforced.
"Personally, I see advantages in the US approach to unfair practices, where essentially the legal framework defines any breach, even of a voluntary commitment, as equivalent to a legal infringement with all that implies. This would strengthen the workability of co-regulation and self-regulation by giving confidence to both business and consumers that commitments, once given, will be honoured," he said.
