On April 4, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) welcomed from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”) new guidelines for protecting e-commerce consumers.  Founded by the United States more than fifty years ago, the OECD is an international forum for countries with market economies that are committed to promoting policies aimed at improving the economic and social well-being of their citizens. 

The original OECD guidelines issued in 1999 established a set of principles for e-commerce.  The revised guidelines address many issues that have developed since then.  For example, the new guidelines address the following seven new developments in e-commerce, which are explained as follows:

1. The OECD guidelines now contemplate transactions between consumers and businesses, where the consumer acquires a “free” good or service in exchange for his personal data. 
2. The guidelines recommend new language for contracts regarding digital content that frequently occurs in e-commerce in order to make the information clearer and more functional.
3. The OECD added a provision to address the increasingly popular business strategy of facilitating consumer-to-consumer transactions.
4. Two new provisions were added to address the use of mobile devices with a particular focus on the technical challenges of making the information effective.
5. The guidelines contain new recommendations to improve privacy and security risks associated with business to consumer transactions.
6. The guidelines also contain recommendations addressed to payment protection by calling on government stakeholders as well as businesses to collaborate in finding a more effective solution.
7. The OECD guidelines also address product safety and safety-related recalls in online purchases of products.

A full copy of the recommendations are available here.

Reporter, Julie A. Stockton, Silicon Valley, +1 650 422 6818, jstockton@kslaw.com