Computer and video games is a young industry with rapid growth underpinned by technological development. The global market in 2003 was over USD 21 billion compared with USD 32 billion for the recorded music industry. The main segments are off-line consoles and PCs; online and wireless games are...

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...

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...

This report uses a standard gravity setup to analyse the determinants of e-commerce, using data on online credit card payments by private Spanish customers of the multinational bank BBVA. The results show that the gravity model applies well to credit card payments, explaining up to 95% of the...

This paper aims to complement the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Consumer Protection in E-Commerce by elaborating on its key principles in the context of online advertising and offering practical guidance on how to apply these principles. For these purposes, the guide provides a number of...

Building on the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Consumer Protection in E-Commerce, this paper aims to provide practical guidance to businesses on online consumer ratings and reviews. The document focuses on four issue areas: (i) fake ratings and reviews; (ii) incentivised ratings and...

This paper takes stock of recent developments related to online consumer ratings and reviews and their effects on consumer behaviour. It provides an overview of key consumer benefits and risks associated with user-generated feedback, and identifies consumer policy challenges, including...

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...

Drawing on an expanding array of intelligent web services and applications, a growing number of people are creating, distributing and exploiting user-created content (UCC) and being part of the wider participative web. This study describes the rapid growth of UCC and its increasing role in...