advocacy groups

This page points to Australian and international bodies with an interest in online consumer issues. The 'reputation' page of our Marketing guide looks at 'attack' or 'sucks' sites.

     Australian consumer rights bodies

The Australian Consumers' Association (ACA) site offers information about consumers rights.

Among specialist groups with an interest in consumer issues are the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) - intellectual property - and the Australian Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email (CAUBE.AU) - spam.

     overseas

The International Organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU) links activities of some 127 organizations in 51 countries. It serves as an international forum on consumer problems and works to stimulate an interchange of product test information, consumer education materials, and other data among organizations of different nations. IOCU sponsors an Asian-Pacific Regional Office to assist consumers in developing countries. The organization also represents consumer interests in international agencies such as the UN

The Consumers International (CI) organisation, representing consumer bodies in many countries, last year released Consumers@shopping, an international comparative study of electronic commerce that highlighted concerns regarding service reliability, redress, ordering processes, applicable law, cookies and other matters.  

Most national consumer organisations, such as the US Consumers Union, the Consumers Federation of America (CFA) and the UK National Consumer Council (NCC), are online.

Specialist groups include the Coalition Against Unsolicited Bulk Email (CAUCE), the Junkbusters organisation and Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS). We've described those bodies in the spam page of our Security guide.

The Centre for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has a strong interest in privacy, intellectual property and telecommunications access issues. The smaller US Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) was established by Ralph Nader in the mid nineties.

At the other end of the spectrum the US Consumer Alert (CA) organisation advocates a laissez-faire approach. That's unsurprising given its marketing as a "non-profit, non-partisan membership organisation for people concerned about the excessive growth of government regulation at the national and state levels ... our organization is the only free-market public interest group whose sole mission is to represent average consumers as purchasers of goods and services in a dynamic and competitive marketplace". 

The international equivalent is the International Consumers for Civil Society (ICFCS). Neither are particularly credible but form part of debate in the US.

     New Zealand and Canada

The website of New Zealand Consumers Institute (CINZ), equivalent of Australia's Consumers Association is worth a visit as an example of a positive and professional approach by one of the smaller consumer rights bodies.

In Canada the Consumers' Association of Canada (CAC) is online.

     other initiatives

Locally the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) has placed its direct marketing Merchant Code of Conduct online.

In October 2000 the American Bar Association established SafeShopping, a website devoted to online consumer protection issues.



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