SoylentNews

Australian Competition Commission Recommend Changes to Stop Anti-Competitive Behaviour

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday July 28 2019, @10:11AM   
from the Using-mosquitoes-to-stop-trains dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Australia's consumer watchdog has handed down 23 proposed changes in a new report into the behaviour of the world's biggest tech giants. If adopted, tech giants will be required to take the collection and use of user data more seriously. The recommendations include creating an independent ombudsman, a new specialist arm named the "ACCC digital platforms branch" for proactively investigating anti-competitive conduct, upgrading the Privacy Act, improve handling of fake news, and allow users to select their default search engine and browser on Android. The intent is to bring Australia in line with the protections the US and Europe have for user privacy.

Maybe they will finally make it law that users get root access to their devices by default.

---

Original Submission

• Does nothing for consumer rights Does nothing for consumer rights (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:57PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 28 2019, @01:57PM (#872298)

  I read the executive summary and list of recommendations. It doesn't really do anything for consumer rights. The list has an item recommending a stronger DMCA-like law that would result in more people's stuff getting illegitimately taken down from Youtube, by fraudulent copyright claims. They want to make it /easier/ to file these bogus claims to steal monetization and force ads onto videos they have no rights to.

  They don't do anything to ensure that people will have control over their devices or accounts. They do nothing to protect consumers.

  Starting Score:	0		points
  Moderation		+2
  Interesting=2, Total=2
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		2

• Re:Does nothing for consumer rights (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday July 29 2019, @03:33AM

  by driverless (4770) on Monday July 29 2019, @03:33AM (#872509)

  I read the executive summary and list of recommendations. It doesn't really do anything for consumer rights.

  Uhh, yes it does. Let me guess, your in the US, and possibly a Republican voter? This sort of thing always gets interpreted as "taking away our rights" or "socialism" or whatever in the US when it's proposed by other countries, even when those other countries have a long track record of looking out for consumers. Australia actually has some really good consumer-protection legislation, far better than we have here (sigh, wish we had some of Australia's consumer protections), and yet ours is still a long way ahead of the US, where "consumer protection" is often just "if you have a lot of money you can try sueing the company who wronged you".

  They do nothing to protect consumers.

  See above, Australian consumer protection legislation is actually pretty effective.

  Parent