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Makes recommendations for protecting users in cyberspace, which relate to commercial communications, relationships between the service provider and consumers, and data protection. Concludes that initiatives involving trust and confidence are a means of developing confidence in electronic commerce.

This paper aims to develop an instrument for measuring Consumer Protection and its Determinants (CP&Ds). This is because literature on an instrument to measure CP&Ds is scarce.

In Nigeria, 53 questionnaires were distributed to legal practitioners. The study used 24 items to operationalize the CP&Ds. The research data were coded and scored, and the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted using SPSS version 22. The Bartlett’s test of sphericity, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin, Cronbach’s alpha and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used for the EFA, internal consistency reliability and multicollinearity, respectively.

The EFA produced seven factors, and each determinant was found reliable with its measure of internal consistency.

The research result may not be generalized across jurisdiction because of the limited sample size and the fact that the data were collected from Nigerian legal practitioners.

This study can be used by policymakers and even private electricity companies in the deregulated electricity sector in Nigeria for policy design and effective consumer protection.

From the extensive literature review none was identified on the scale development for measuring CP&Ds. This exploratory research is the first attempt to develop an instrument for measuring CP&Ds.

This study aims to examine the phenomenon of Fatwā shopping, its effect on consumer trust in Islamic finance products and the need for effective consumer protection regulations in the Islamic finance industry.

The methodology used in this study is qualitative research which draws significantly from relevant regulations on financial consumer protection through analytical method to identify common themes on Fatwā shopping and consumer trust in the relevant literature.

This study finds that the increasing practice of Fatwā shopping through clandestine searches by some Islamic banks to get their new products endorsed by leading Sharī‘ah scholars requires proper legal regulation to avoid a total erosion of trust in the entire Islamic finance industry.

Though Fatwā shopping is practiced in the Islamic finance industry, it is always difficult to get some desperate Islamic bankers to agree to this; hence, this study does not portend to examine the evidence on Fatwā shopping, but it seeks to bring to the fore the effect of Fatwā shopping on consumer trust in Islamic financial services, and the need for effective consumer protection regulations.

This study is expected to provide an invaluable guide and policy framework for emerging and promising jurisdictions on the need to regulate Fatwā shopping through an effective legal framework based on some best practices identified in the study.

Though there have been a number of studies relating to Fatwā shopping, focusing on the need for effective consumer protection regulations in the Islamic finance industry will enrich the existing literature and have significant implications for the future of the industry.

Internet forms a popular forum for information exchange between consumers, while online marketing has opened a range of new facilities for companies to promote and sell their products. This article aims to find out if consumer power has increased as a result of comparison websites and access to more information, or whether it has decreased because of unreliable companies and websites that misuse identity concealing features of the Internet. Main question is whether the autonomy of consumers, and therewith the position of power against producers, is restricted by advertisement techniques from producers who are using the Internet, and if there are causes for concern. Attention will be paid to current legislation on consumer protection and on unfair commercial practices, and implications of online shopping are discussed. Methods such as ‘markufacturing’ and comparison websites are discussed explicitly. Some focus points are provided as a first onset to further regulation in order to retain fair power positions between producers and consumers.

Based on a decolonial perspective from Latin America, this paper aims to offer a different history of the creation of Brazil’s Consumer Defense Code (CDC), analyzing the process through which Eurocentric influences, especially coming from Consumers International (CI), became present in the development of the code.

A qualitative historical research was developed using marketing amnesia and decolonialism as its theoretical backdrop. Primary and secondary data are used as source of information. Primary data were obtained through interviews with two authors of the CDC. Secondary data were collected from academic articles and books, reports, magazines and consumer organization websites, as well as journalistic articles.

During the drafting of the CDC and after its promulgation, the presence of Eurocentric forces was constant, given the interests of CI and other agents in influencing Brazil’s consumer practices, subordinating them to those of the Global North. This Eurocentric presence was accepted by the Brazilian jurists that drafted the CDC, which led to the incorporation of both laws and bills from Eurocentric countries and the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection into the code.

Such discussions are scarce in marketing, due to the area’s amnestic state regarding the past. While selectively forgetting certain pasts, marketing fails to both acknowledge its tendency to subordinate consumerist actions to those accepted by the Eurocentric world, and to establish analyses that deal with mimetic processes, to minimize asymmetries between companies and consumers, especially in emerging economies, and, even more, dichotomies between the Global North and the Global South.

This article seeks to take a critical look at the proposed Common European Sales Law (CESL).

The article looks at the rationales given to support the enactment of the CESL. The approach is critical in nature seeking to vet the plausibility of the rationales given for a new regulation The article also takes a critical look at the CESL's structure and trilogy of coverage – sale of goods, supply of digital content, and supply of services.

The article exposes some of the shortcomings of the CESL and the dangers to substantive private law of crafting a regulation based on political feasibility.

The CESL as proposed offers some innovative ideas in areas of the bifurcation of businesses into large and small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as rules covering digital content and the supply of trade‐related services. In the end, the analysis suggests a more thorough review is needed to better understand the CESL's interrelationship with the Convention on Contracts for the International Sales Law (CISG) and EU consumer protection law.

Further analysis is needed and unanswered questions need to be answered prior to the enactment of the CESL into law. A practical first step would to begin with a more targeted law focused on internet trading and licensing contracts.

This article questions the rationales given for the enactment of an ambitious new regulation covering disparate areas of sale of goods, supplying (licensing) of digital content, trade‐related services, and consumer protection. It further questions the rationality and practicality of the creation of the designation of SMEs as types of businesses in need of extra protections not currently provided by contract law's general policing doctrines.

The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflection on the abuse of consumer trust and the importance of control of information in the digital market and the green market. The role of the consumer as the arbiter of the market is fundamental. The abuse of consumer confidence depends, in fact, on the spread of stereotyped messages and vague and generic formulas aimed at hiding a dangerous vacuum of protection. In both markets, it is a question of giving the consumer the necessary tools to monitor the transparency of the criteria used by the trader to classify a product according to its characteristics.

Based on the analysis of an Italian case law and the European programme, the author shows how in Italy there is a dangerous lack of consumer protection. The problem is that the green consumer, as well as the online consumer, is not able to immediately verify the accuracy of the product requirements and must be able to count on the seriousness of the professional. For this reason, the European and national authorities have provided specific rules for both markets. The new proposal of directive introduces specific rules to target unfair commercial practices that mislead consumers away from sustainable consumption choices and introduced many innovations, such as the ban on greenwashing.

This work aims to identify the tools necessary to make the information on the products offered in the digital market and those related to green products more reliable but above all to create a common methodology on which to base them. High is the risk that sustainability will become a simple marketing strategy for companies. The difficulty consists in the absence of certain and verifiable parameters by the consumer to really measure the characteristics and the quality of a product characteristic of a product compared to competing ones.

This work examines the problem of consumer protection in the digital and green market from a new perspective, comparing the information asymmetries with respect to the professionals in the two markets. Starting from the cases of greenwashing and analysing new European remedies, the author suggests for both markets, specific answers different from those required for advertising in general. The problem here is not only the truth of the message but also the vagueness and genericity. The consumer must be in a position to control the criteria used by the professional to classify products, both in the green and the digital market. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the original work of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

This paper aims to examine consumers’ attitudes toward marketing practices and consumer rights in Jordan, based on an empirical investigation of university students. The study refers to John Kennedy’s bill of four consumer rights: the Right to Safety, the Right to be Informed, the Right to Choose and the Right to be Heard.

This paper depends on a convenience sample of 381 students, using a drop-off method, with a structured, self-administered questionnaire to measure consumer attitudes regarding the four basic consumer rights, as listed above, utilizing a five-point Likert scale measure.

The overall findings show that the current consumers’ attitudes toward marketing practices related to protection of consumer rights is not highly favorable, indicating that more work will be needed for improvement, with more attention to consumers’ Right to be Heard. The study urged marketers and public policymakers in Jordan to reconsider the way consumer rights were being approached by marketing practitioners.

The study is unique by virtue of its nature, scope and way of empirical investigation, as it explores the status of perceived consumer rights for the first time in Jordan, drawing on John Kennedy’ model. The study calls upon marketers and public policymakers to pay more attention to the current status of consumer rights, with implications for better business strategies and more useful legislations pertaining to consumer protection.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between financial consumer protection (FCP) and economic growth.

The authors use cross-country data on 114 countries surveyed in the World Bank Global Survey on FCP and Financial Literacy (2013) and endogenous treatment regressions for the estimation.

The results indicate that FCP enhances economic growth through fair treatment, responsible lending, enforcement and dispute resolution and recourse regulations. The authors find no evidence to suggest that disclosure and compliance monitoring regulations have an effect on economic growth.

This study provides rich insight into the important question faced by policy makers, as to which FCP regulatory mechanisms to put in place to enhance economic growth.

This study provides current, cross-country empirical evidence on the debate as to whether FCP enhances economic growth.

It is undoubtedly the case that advertising plays a significant part in modern economic life in most societies and many view it as an essential part of the operation of a free market system. Yet it is also the case that our knowledge of how exactly it works and whether the vast amounts spent on it are justified is still uncertain. Lord Leverhulme, the founder of Lever Brothers, is credited with the famous aphorism — ‘one half of advertising does not work but nobody knows which half’ and that perhaps sums up the situation very well. One thing that is generally accepted is that some protection must be provided both to consumers and trade competitors from false or misleading advertising which can lead to market distortions and economic loss to purchasers. Increasingly controversial, however, is the scope and extent of legal and voluntary controls on advertising. In the advertising industry fears are rising about the volume of both national and EEC proposals to restrict or limit advertising and as we move from the '80s, a decade of conspicuous consumption in which advertising flourished, to the caring '90s where environmental issues are to the fore, the advertising industry faces major challenges. Advertising as a whole is facing severe economic and legal challenges after the massive expansion of the 1980's — it is estimated that there was a 4% fall in real terms in UK advertising expenditure in the first quarter of 1990 and an estimated 5% fall in the second quarter. Clients are becoming more demanding and the cosy cartel arrangement whereby advertising agencies made a 15% standard commission on a client's expenditure has gone — commissions are down to 12%‐13% or being replaced by fixed fees. It has been estimated by the Advertising Association that proposed legal restrictions could lead to a loss of £1 bn in revenue for the industry. Multi‐farious pressure groups are campaigning against drink advertising, cigarette advertising and sexism in adverts. The advertising industry's concerns are reflected in a recent report by the Advertising Association — ‘A Freedom Under Threat — Advertising in the EC’. The report indicates a number of areas where legislative controls have been introduced or are proposed to be introduced over the next few years and expresses the fear that controls may be going too far in limiting freedom of ‘commercial speech’. Martin Boase, chairman of the Advertising Association writes in his introduction to the report: