Digital transformation is profoundly impacting our economies and societies, changing the ways in which consumers interact with each other and the online marketplace. Consumer data, in this context, have become an essential economic asset powering a wide range of new and innovative business models, technologies and transactions. Digital transformation has affected long-standing consumer policy issues, such as information asymmetries and inadequate disclosures, misleading and unfair commercial practices, consumer fraud, product safety, cross-border enforcement co-operation, dispute resolution and redress, sustainable consumption and the protection of vulnerable digital consumers.
However, for some social media users, privacy may not be an important concern. ... Nonetheless, privacy isn't truly dead, it's just finding it hard to breathe at the moment. It is still possible to operate in a relatively private way online. Data privacy denotes how information should be managed based on its perceived importance. In this digital age, the concept of data privacy is mainly applied to critical personal information, also refereed to as personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI).
The affordance of digital technologies and the growing popularity of e-commerce have provided at once tremendous opportunities for consumer empowerment, but also challenges to consumer rights protection. The internet has largely expanded consumers' access to products and services across the world, as well as to information and resources that facilitate their consumer decisions. Constant feedback loops between consumers and their devices or apps enable companies to observe, anticipate, address and adapt to consumers' needs swiftly and predictively; they also allow the producers and service providers to frequently update their products and services to satisfy the consumer's evolving needs. Online shopping and mobile payment have made purchases convenient and instantaneous. The emerging uses of novel technologies such as AR and VR in retailing will potentially enhance online shopping experiences.
However, at the same time, consumer activities in the digital age are besieged by growing problems related to the complexity, opacity, and uncertainty around the use of personal data, as well as misleading, unethical or fraudulent commercial practices. What are the challenges consumer rights protection is facing in the digital age?
On the one hand, pre-existing challenges to and violations of consumer rights may be exacerbated in the digital age due to ill-conceived or illegal use of digital technologies by unethical businesses. On the other hand, new problems have surfaced with the development of commercial tracking and targeting, the Internet of Things and other affordances of digital technologies. Below are a few challenges that consumers may encounter in the digital age. In the digital age, consumers leave behind data exhausts or digital footprints after every online transaction. These include a range of personal data that as a whole assemble a consumer's online profile. Personal data are often used to provide personalized advertising or product recommendations. However, there is still a considerable degree of opacity, uncertainty, and complexity around the use of personal data. Smart devices, wearables, and home appliances enable businesses to track users' activity in their private spaces, collecting all kinds of data. Once stored online, the data exists permanently and can be used for other purposes. In case businesses leak such data, consumers risk becoming victims of crimes such as privacy infringement and identity theft.
In addition, higher transparency is needed for personalization algorithms to make sure that consumers not only know about and consent to the use of their personal data, but also have fair access to the information about products and services.
To conclude, the advancement of digital technologies brings about both opportunities and challenges to consumers, who are at once greatly empowered by digital technologies and vulnerable to pre-existing or emerging risks.
Nonetheless, there are many measures to which we may resort to curtail the risks and amplify the benefits brought about by novel technologies.