Tag: ACCC

Australia – The National Anti-Scam Centre has launched its new campaign ‘Stop. Check. Protect.’ campaign, which seeks to tackle the threat of scams by educating the community about sophisticated scam tactics, reminding people that anyone can be vulnerable to scams, and empowering victims to report scams to Scamwatch. 

According to the federal government, this new awareness campaign will make Australia a tougher target for scammers by arming Australians with the tools they need to put a stop to fraudsters.

The government stated that Australians have been losing billions of dollars to scams every year in recent times, with criminals routinely targeting businesses and consumers through fake emails, phone calls, SMS or text messages and social media.

For ACCC Deputy Chair Catriona Lowe, there are three steps to staying safe from scams, which are becoming more and more difficult to spot.

“Forty years on, we all still use the iconic ‘Slip, Slop, Slap’ message of the 1980s as a handy reminder of how to be sun safe. Now we need all Australians to ‘Stop. Check. Protect.’ to help keep themselves and others safe from scammers,” she said.

She added, “This campaign is about inspiring the behavioural change in every Australian – ensuring we stop and check before acting on that suspicious email, phone call, text message or social media post – that will stop scammers in their tracks.”

Lowe also said building community resilience to scams is particularly important in an environment where criminals are increasingly turning to new technologies, such as artificial intelligence – and impersonating trusted organisations to deceive Australians and steal their money.

“Australian consumers have told us that it sometimes feels like scams are everywhere and inevitable. This campaign will emphasise that we’re not powerless to scammers. When we’re alert, we’re in control. And by stopping and checking when we’re unsure, then reporting scams we’ve seen, we can protect ourselves and others against financial harm,” she added.

The ‘Stop. Check. Protect.’ campaign will be shown across television, online video, and social media from today (Sunday 12 January 2025). It will be supported by a range of other initiatives to promote scam awareness amongst vulnerable groups, including older Australians, First Nations peoples, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

The 10-week campaign will also address community misconceptions around scams by cautioning Australians that everyone is at risk of being scammed.

“Anyone can be the target of a scam at any time. Scams are crimes – and if you’ve been scammed, you’re a victim of crime. There’s absolutely nothing to feel ashamed of or embarrassed about – it could happen to any of us,” Lowe said. “If you are scammed, or you encounter a scam, please report it to Scamwatch so we can take steps to protect others against financial harm. The information you report can provide vital intelligence to help disrupt scams.”

The public information and awareness campaign will complement work being led by the National Anti-Scam Centre to unite Government, law enforcement and industry to disrupt scams, and the criminal groups behind them.

Australia – Alan Joyce, the current chief executive officer of Qantas has announced that he is stepping down from his role fom the company. This comes after the Australian flag carrier came under pressure from legal proceedings made by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over its alleged misleading advertising of tickets.

According to a press statement from Qantas, Joyce will be replaced by Vanessa Hudson, who now takes the role of managing director and group CEO for the airline. This takes effect on September 6 this year.

In a statement by Joyce, he said that the focus on Qantas and events of the past make it clear to him that the company needs to move ahead with its renewal as a priority.

“The best thing I can do under these circumstances is to bring forward my retirement and hand over to Vanessa and the new management team now, knowing they will do an excellent job,” he said.

He added, “There is a lot I am proud of over my 22 years at Qantas, including the past 15 years as CEO. There have been many ups and downs, and there is clearly much work still to be done, especially to make sure we always deliver for our customers. But I leave knowing that the company is fundamentally strong and has a bright future.”

Meanwhile, Richard Goyder, chairman at Qantas, commented, “Alan has always had the best interests of Qantas front and centre, and today shows that. On behalf of the Board, we sincerely thank him for his leadership through some enormous challenges and for thinking well-ahead on opportunities like ultra long-haul travel.”

He added, “This transition comes at what is obviously a challenging time for Qantas and its people. We have an important job to do in restoring the public’s confidence in the kind of company we are, and that’s what the Board is focused on, and what the management under Vanessa’s leadership will do.”

Last week, the ACCC filed an action against Qantas at the Federal Court of Australia over the airline’s misleading conduct of advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights that it had already cancelled but not removed from sale.

According to the commission, Qantas kept selling tickets on its website for an average of more than two weeks, and in some cases for up to 47 days, after the cancellation of the flights.

It also alleges that for about 70% of cancelled flights, Qantas either continued to sell tickets for the flight on its website for two days or more, or delayed informing existing ticketholders that their flight was cancelled for two days or more, or both.

Speaking on their investigation, ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlie said, “We allege that Qantas’ conduct in continuing to sell tickets to cancelled flights, and not updating ticketholders about cancelled flights, left customers with less time to make alternative arrangements and may have led to them paying higher prices to fly at a particular time not knowing that flight had already been cancelled.”

In response, Qantas previously said that during the ACCC conducted the investigation, it was a time of unprecedented upheaval for the entire airline industry, and that they have always practiced a longstanding approach to managing cancellations for flights, with a focus on providing customers with rebooking options or refunds.

“All airlines were experiencing well-publicised issues from a very challenging restart, with ongoing border uncertainty, industry wide staff shortages and fleet availability causing a lot of disruption,” the company said back then.

Australia — The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has instituted proceedings in the Federal Court against mobility as a service provider Uber, which has admitted it engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and made false or misleading representations in the Uber ridesharing app.

Uber has admitted that it breached the Australian Consumer Law by making false or misleading statements in cancellation warning messages and Uber Taxi fare estimates and has agreed to make joint submissions with the ACCC to the Court for penalties totalling $26 million to be imposed.

Between at least December 2017 and September 2021, the Uber rideshare app displayed to over more than two million Australian consumers who sought to cancel a ride a warning with the words to the effect of ‘You may be charged a small fee since your driver is already on their way’, even when consumers were seeking to cancel a ride within Uber’s free cancellation period.

Most Uber services including the popular UberX have a five minute ‘free cancellation period’ after the driver has accepted the trip, in which an Uber user can cancel their ride without incurring a fee.

Gina Cass-Gottlieb, ACCC Chair, said, “Uber admits it misled Australian users for a number of years and may have caused some of them to decide not to cancel their ride after receiving the cancellation warning, even though they were entitled to cancel free of charge under Uber’s own policy.”

In September 2021, Uber amended its cancellation messaging for Uber services across Australia to ’You won’t be charged a cancellation fee’ if users seek to cancel during the free cancellation period.

Additionally, for about two years, the Uber app displayed an estimated fare range for the ‘Uber Taxi’ ride option which Uber has admitted falsely represented that the fare of a taxi booked through that option would likely be within an estimated fare range shown in the app.

In fact, the algorithm used to calculate the estimated fare range inflated these estimates so that the actual taxi fare was almost always lower than that range, and consequently cheaper than Uber’s lowest estimate. The misleading taxi fare estimates were displayed between June 2018 and August 2020, after which the Taxi ride option, available only in Sydney, was removed.

Cass-Gottlieb said, “Uber admits its conduct misled users about the likely cost of the taxi option, and that it did not monitor the algorithm used to generate these estimates to ensure it was accurate.”

“Digital platforms like Uber need to take adequate measures to monitor the accuracy of their algorithms and the accuracy of statements they make, which may affect what service consumers choose. This is particularly important as online businesses often carefully design their user interfaces to influence consumer behaviour,” Cass-Gottlieb continued.

The parties have agreed to jointly seek orders from the Federal Court including declarations that Uber contravened the Australian Consumer Law, and for the company to pay penalties. The Federal Court will decide at a later date whether the orders sought, including the proposed penalties, are appropriate.

Recently, ACCC has also fined Trivago for showing misleading hotel rates on their platform.

Sydney, Australia – The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released a report today that has raised concerns on the state of the advertising technology space in Australia, specifically tech giant Google’s dominance of the sector, which may potentially harm advertisers and publishers.

According to their report inquiry, Google has a dominant position in key parts of the adtech supply chain and estimates that more than 90% of ad impressions traded via the adtech supply chain passed through at least one Google service in 2020.

It is estimated that in Australia, at least 27% of advertiser spend on ads sold via the adtech supply chain was retained by adtech providers in 2020.

Furthermore, the report finds that Google has used its position to preference its own services and shield them from competition. For example, Google prevents rival adtech services from accessing ads on YouTube, providing its own adtech services with an important advantage. In addition, Google has also refused to participate in publisher-led header bidding, an industry innovation aimed at increasing competition for publishers’ inventory, and previously allowed its services to have a ‘last look’ opportunity to outbid rivals.

“Google has used its vertically integrated position to operate its adtech services in a way that has, over time, led to a less competitive adtech industry. This conduct has helped Google to establish and entrench its dominant position in the adtech supply chain,” Rod Sims, chair at ACCC, said.

Part of the tech giant’s dominance in the adtech sector are key acquisitions of several companies such as DoubleClick in 2007, AdMob in 2009, as well as YouTube in 2006. In addition, factors such as access to consumer and other data, access to exclusive inventory and integration across its adtech services cemented their dominance in the sector.

“Google’s activities across the supply chain also mean that, in a single transaction, Google can act on behalf of both the advertiser (the buyer) and the publisher (the seller) and operate the ad exchange connecting these two parties. As the interests of these parties do not align, this creates conflicts of interest for Google which can harm both advertisers and publishers,” Sims stated.

He added that the ACCC is concerned with Google’s adtech dominance, noting that the lack of competition has likely led to higher adtech fees. He further stated that an inefficient adtech industry means higher costs for both publishers and advertisers, which is likely to reduce the quality or quantity of online content and ultimately results in consumers paying more for advertised goods.

“The ACCC is considering specific allegations against Google under existing competition laws. However new regulatory solutions are needed to address Google’s dominance and to restore competition to the adtech sector for the benefit of businesses and consumers. We recommend rules be considered to manage conflicts of interest, prevent anti-competitive self-preferencing, and ensure rival adtech providers can compete on their merits,” Sims continued.

They have also noted that many of the concerns they identified in the adtech supply chain are similar to concerns in other digital platform markets, such as online search, social media, and app marketplaces. These markets are also dominated by one or two key providers, which benefit from vertical integration, leading to significant competition concerns. In many cases, these are compounded by a lack of transparency.

“We have identified systemic competition concerns relating to conduct over many years and multiple adtech services, including conduct that harms rivals. Investigation and enforcement proceedings under general competition laws are not well suited to deal with these sorts of broad concerns, and can take too long if anti-competitive harm is to be prevented,” Sims concluded.

Google has access to a large volume and range of first-party data gathered through its customer-facing services, such as Search, Maps, and YouTube. The extent to which Google uses its first-party data to advantage its adtech businesses is not clear and is a source of confusion among industry stakeholders.

The report also recommends that under the proposed new sector-specific rules, the ACCC be given the power to develop and implement special measures to address competition issues caused by an adtech provider’s data advantage, such as data separation or data access requirements to address the competition risks that may arise from the use of first-party data.