The European Consumer Organization BEUC presented its new report on consumer attitudes on various aspects of the online world today 'Connected, but unfairly treated – Consumer survey results on the fairness of the online environment'. According to results, consumers often do not feel in control of neither the content they are presented with nor their online decisions, and they want greater regulation of commercial influencers and more child protection online.
For this survey, BEUC commissioned Open Evidence to conduct interviews by means of online questionnaires with 4,929 participants aged 18 years and above across the 8 EU Member States of France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain and Sweden throughout February and March 2023.
These are further insights:
- With 43 percent, less than half of consumers said they feel in control of the content they are shown and the decisions they take online.
- Respondents felt unhappy with how they are protected online by their authorities, especially in Romania (46 percent) and France (40 percent), less so in Sweden (26 percent) and Italy (28 percent).
- Less than one in five respondents considered it fair that they are targeted with ads based on their lives or vulnerabilities, and disapproved of being monitored and tracked online. Only 7 percent did not want to choose how much data is collected on them.
- 75 percent of consumers agreed that children needed more protection from online tracking and from being influenced by digital services.
- Seeking greater regulation, 44 percent of consumers who came across influencers on social media saw them promoting possible scams or problematic products. 74 percent said that platforms hosting them should also be responsible for their influencer content.
Ursula Pachl, BEUC Deputy Director General, said: "Despite clear advantages to a more connected world, there are significant downsides to its current setup which undermine the ability of consumers to protect their rights, stay in control and make their own choices. The survey we are putting out today makes clear that there are big issues which consumers want policy makers to solve. The pervasiveness of online monitoring and tracking of people’s lives is unacceptable. We must also do much more to protect children. The survey also raises serious concerns about the role influencers play in the market. What we now need is for the Commission to address these concerns in its ongoing fitness check of EU consumer law and propose amendments to legislation. It is only by tackling these problems that consumer law can stay up to date and the EU can keep its promise of a high level of consumer empowerment and protection."
Source: BEUC
More information and report