Online personalised pricing is a form of price discrimination that involves charging different prices to different consumers, often based on a consumer’s personal data. Policymakers are currently discussing ways to protect consumers from potential adverse effects of personalised pricing. One...

Protecting consumers when they are most vulnerable has long been a core focus of consumer policy. This report first discusses the nature and scale of consumer vulnerability in the digital age, including its evolving conceptualisation, the role of emerging digital trends, and implications for...

In October 2021, twenty-one OECD countries and partner economies participated in an online product safety sweep to identify the degree to which products were available for sale online despite (i) being banned or recalled, (ii) having inadequate labelling or (iii) not meeting voluntary or...

Online disclosures can play a key role in informing consumer decisions. However, cognitive limitations such as information overload, as well as technical ones such as small screen sizes on mobile devices, may limit their effectiveness. Additionally, businesses may sometimes focus on technical...

In recent years, a number of consumer product safety authorities have established product safety pledges with online marketplaces as a new way to better protect consumers from the risk of purchasing unsafe products that may be available on those platforms. Product safety pledges involve online...

Problems in e-commerce can lead to significant consumer harm (detriment), for example, when consumers have to pay more for a product than they reasonably expected (e.g. due to hidden costs); suffer from unfair contract terms; or receive products that do not conform to their reasonable...

Online marketplaces matching third-party sellers with consumers are now key e-commerce channels globally. Despite their popularity and the benefits they bring to consumers, they do present a number of risks, for example when their third-party sellers engage in misleading marketing and fraud, or...