Consultation on Changes to Laws Against Unfair Practices

The Government is consulting in relation to unfair trading practices can manipulate consumer choice and undermine competition, especially in the digital economy.

The Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (CRIS) can be found on the Treasury website with submissions welcome until 29 November 2023.

Examples of unfair trading practices identified by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) include:

• making it unnecessarily inconvenient to cancel an online subscription;
• deliberately over-disclosing product details to hide information consumers require to make an informed decision;
• websites using crosses that look like they close a browser window but link to something else (like an ad) instead;
• clickwrap agreements with take-it-or-leave-it terms and long disclaimers to get people to give consent to their data being used.

Members with feedback should reach out to AFIA Senior Policy Adviser, Sebastian Reinehr at [email protected].