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Month: June 2023

Technological neutrality is the best mechanism of cyber security and protects consumer data privacy

KUALA LUMPUR, 26 th June 2023 – The Consumer Choice Center (CCC) emphasizes the
importance of governments supporting and maintaining technological neutrality in putting in
place the best mechanisms for cybersecurity systems and consumer data protection.

Representative of the Malaysian Consumer Choice Center, Tarmizi Anuwar said: “Technology
changes very quickly and faster than amendments or changes in laws. In this regard, laws that
are friendly to innovation and technology or so-called neutral technology need to be prepared so
that healthy competition between private companies becomes the best method of determining
the mechanism in data privacy regulations.”

In addition, Tarmizi commented on the recommendation of the Minister of Communications and
Digital that the private sector makes investments related to aspects of cyber security and data
privacy according to the appropriateness of their respective operational levels which is
considered positive. However, it is necessary to remain consistent and not put an excessive
burden on the private sector.

“The recommendation can be considered good because the enforcement of interoperability
standards can be prepared and implemented by the firm that handles the data, and is not
necessarily determined by law. This will also give space to start-up companies to operate at a
cost that matches their capabilities.”

“Basically, every company has its own interest in protecting the cyber security or privacy data of
their consumers. Excessive legal stipulations such as imposing specific software will cause an
increase in business costs and subsequently increase prices for consumers”, he said.

Explaining Malaysia’s efforts to collaborate with Southeast Asian countries in creating a data
sharing protocol to become a regional data processing hub, he said the government must make
the concept of industry-based data portability as the main standard.

“In order to become a regional data processing hub, the government needs to use industry
standards as the main policy and strategy. This standard is a faster and more efficient way and
is able to coordinate the differences in laws in each country to enforce and regulate portability
over the law.” he concluded.

COMMENT ÉCHAPPER À LA CENSURE GOUVERNEMENTALE ?

Un outil se démocratise qui permet d’accéder à plus de contenus… tant que l’Etat ne s’en mêle pas directement. 

De plus en plus de consommateurs utilisent des VPN sur leurs appareils qui accèdent à Internet. Ce qui était autrefois une technique plutôt obscure permettant d’accéder à des sites différents par l’intermédiaire de serveurs virtuels est devenu un outil de plus en plus courant, qui a suscité l’intérêt des utilisateurs d’internet et des autorités de régulation.

Un VPN (Virtual Private Network), en français RPV (réseaux privé virtuel) permet à ses utilisateurs de se connecter à un serveur différent de celui où ils se trouvent actuellement. A travers diverses techniques cryptographiques, le VPN masque l’adresse IP de l’utilisateur et lui donne accès à d’autres contenus.

Déménager sans bouger

Il existe différentes utilisations d’un VPN : l’une d’entre elles, très courante, est l’accès à des contenus vidéo en streaming. En effet, alors qu’une nouvelle émission de télévision populaire peut être disponible aux Etats-Unis, il n’est pas possible de la regarder depuis la France. En connectant votre VPN à un serveur situé à New York, vous aurez accès au contenu qui peut être vu de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, depuis le confort de votre propre maison.

Les fournisseurs de services de streaming tels que Netflix ou Amazon Prime n’aiment pas cette pratique, car ils craignent d’avoir des problèmes avec la réglementation sur les droits d’auteur. La raison pour laquelle certains contenus télévisés ne sont pas distribués en France est que ces chaînes n’ont pas acquis les droits pour ces émissions dans l’Hexagone – parfois en raison du prix, parfois parce qu’elles ne pensent pas qu’une certaine émission suscitera beaucoup d’intérêt en France, par rapport aux Etats-Unis.

Cela dit, l’utilisation des VPN dépasse de loin les avantages qu’il y a à regarder Game of Thrones sur son canapé. En masquant votre adresse IP, ils réduisent considérablement les risques de piratage ou de surveillance lorsque vous vous connectez à un réseau Wi-Fi public. Au fur et à mesure que les VPN sont devenus plus populaires, les fournisseurs de services VPN ont trouvé d’autres moyens de protéger vos données lorsque vous êtes en public.

Certains services VPN proposent également une fonction appelée « Internet Kill Switch ». Dans le cas où votre connexion VPN est interrompue ou déconnectée, cette fonction protège votre appareil et ses données des regards indiscrets. Elle bloque tout le trafic Internet vers votre appareil jusqu’à ce que la connexion avec votre VPN soit rétablie.

Quand l’Etat adopte les VPN

Les VPN sont également un bon moyen d’échapper à la censure gouvernementale. Bien que cela soit moins problématique dans de nombreux pays européens, les VPN sont couramment utilisés par les consommateurs en Autriche pour contourner les réglementations gouvernementales. Pendant longtemps, Wikipédia n’a pas été accessible en Turquie sans l’utilisation d’un VPN. Les VPN sont également très utilisés dans les dictatures, car les utilisateurs accèdent à des services d’information internationaux qui seraient bloqués dans leur pays.

Toutefois, bon nombre de ces Etats se sont ralliés à cette tendance. Il est légal d’utiliser un VPN en Chine, mais le gouvernement impose de nombreuses restrictions. Les VPN nationaux doivent être approuvés par le gouvernement et ceux qui ne le sont pas sont interdits. Les citoyens peuvent faire l’objet de sanctions, contrairement aux étrangers, qui peuvent rester impunis s’ils sont pris en train d’utiliser des VPN non autorisés. Evidemment, vous pouvez vous imaginer que les VPN locaux chinois sont contraints de ne pas débloquer du contenu interdit par le parti communiste.

En Europe, l’utilisation des VPN n’est pas limitée. Cela dit, le monde occidental a connu des textes législatifs susceptibles d’enfreindre l’utilisation des VPN.

Par exemple, un projet de loi récemment proposé aux Etats-Unis dont le but principal est d’interdire l’utilisation de TikTok fait vaguement référence à la possibilité pour les utilisateurs de contourner cette interdiction. Bien que la loi ne mentionne pas les VPN en tant que tels, Reason Magazine explique que « cette formulation laisse encore plus de place à la loi RESTRICT pour toucher un large éventail d’activités. Peut-être qu’un tribunal finirait par la juger inutilisable contre des personnes essayant simplement d’échapper à une interdiction de TikTok, mais cela ne signifie pas que les procureurs n’essaieraient pas, ni que les autorités n’utiliseraient pas des mesures de surveillance invasives pour essayer de détecter une telle évasion. »

Des services inégaux

Il y a un dernier point dont les consommateurs doivent être conscients. Si les VPN garantissent une plus grande sécurité en ligne, ils sont loin d’être une panacée. De nombreux VPN populaires vous promettent que vous pourrez « surfer sur le web de manière anonyme » ou que vous serez « complètement à l’abri de la surveillance gouvernementale ». Malheureusement, le simple fait de payer pour un VPN ne vous mettra pas totalement à l’abri de la surveillance et des menaces de piratage.

L’anonymat complet en ligne est très difficile à atteindre, car il nécessite une vaste gamme d’appareils et de logiciels de brûlage qui vont bien au-delà de votre utilisation quotidienne.

Lors de la mise en place d’un VPN, il est important de s’informer sur le produit que vous achetez. Il est également conseillé de s’abstenir d’utiliser des VPN « gratuits ». Si le VPN est gratuit, vos données sont le produit. L’utilisation d’un VPN devrait devenir un comportement banal en ligne, mais elle continuera à exiger que vous fassiez vos propres recherches.

Originally published here

Pool-sharing battle in Montgomery County is pure liberal NIMBYism

The sounds of summer are a thing of joy for most people. The birds, the splashing, dogs barking, and the neighborhood kids playing outside. Warmth and life return to the streets. But then there are places such as Montgomery County, Maryland . 

The Washington, D.C. , suburb and home to Chevy Chase, Gaithersburg, Rockville, and Takoma Park is a liberal stronghold within an already liberal region. It’s the kind of place where you can spot a progress pride flag in any direction and feel the welcoming presence of signs reading “No Human Is Illegal” every few yards. Of course, this won’t apply if you’re an “outsider” visiting a Montgomery County neighborhood with the hopes of swimming in a privately owned backyard pool.

A fast-growing app called Swimply has been causing a stir in communities nationwide, but most of all on the posh streets of Montgomery County, where residents are voicing anger and fear over private pools being rented out to strangers looking to beat the heat. It’s a “tremendous nuisance” that has “disturbed” residents and led them to call for a local crackdown on the service, which operates much like an Airbnb but for pools. The function of pool-sharing is simple in a world where app-based, short-term rental markets are now a mainstream idea.

Instead of consumers having to shell out $500 per season to access a private community pool, Swimply allows families and individuals to connect with homeowners who rent out their pools on an hourly basis. Rates average between $45 to $75 on Swimply. It’s a pretty good deal for everyone involved.

But then again, this is happening in a neighborhood that infamously sought to ban dogs from barking in 2019. The town of Chevy Chase naively thought it could drop $134,000 to turn a mud pit into a dog park without an outcry from residents, who similarly called it a “nuisance” bringing in outsiders to the neighborhood.

This language feels awfully coded for the 86.7% white suburb in a county where 60% of residents are Democrats and merely 14% are registered Republicans. It’s doubtful the worrisome outsiders they speak of in town meetings are similarly homogeneous. 

It’s understandable that some homeowners find it annoying when a pool party is being held next door. Thankfully, Montgomery County has tools already in place to help residents manage disturbances in their area, such as a web portal for submitting noise complaints. There’s also the bare minimum of neighborly behavior, which is verbal communication and conversation about community matters. The shortcut more often taken is to harangue town council members into banning these services in hopes of making innovations in the sharing economy go away. But they won’t.

That’s because none of this is new, thanks in large part to Airbnb’s success in advancing the commonsense idea that homeowners maintain the right to earn additional monthly income by sharing their property with others, if they so choose. Swimply will most likely win the right to equal protection under the short-term rental policies already in place for bigger players such as Airbnb.

The amenities being offered by Swimply, private pools and now pickleball courts, are already part of what an Airbnb user can enjoy when they rent out a whole property for a short stay. They can’t be denied to a Swimply user under a different set of arbitrary rules.

The wannabe regulators next door can’t decide on what the concern really is. In a letter to Councilman Will Jawando, 36 residents leaned on everything from noise and drownings to dog poop, strains on the sewer system, and, yes, the inherent racism of sharing economy apps as reasons to ban them. On paper, these “In This House We Believe” types aren’t anxious about visiting renters from the inner city; instead they say, “These pools do NOT have to comply with laws covering discrimination on the basis of race, creed, religious belief, etc. This means, of course, that the owners renting these pools will be able to refuse to rent on these bases. Does the County really want to promote activities that are permitted to discriminate?”

No one believes this is their genuine concern.

One of the concerned citizens told the local media about dog parks, “I’d like to be able to sit on my deck and maybe read a book and chat with a friend or have a glass of wine, and the dogs are barking.” Another co-signer to the letter told the Washington Post that she once had to close her window because of occasional noise.

Pool-sharing is just the latest addition to the growing network of peer to peer services that bring so much flexibility, fun, and adventure to the modern economy. It certainly won’t be the last. Consumers love it, as do countless homeowners with private property they wish to share. Let the people swim.

Originally published here

Parliament’s Health special select committee needs to be independent from MOH’s influence

THE Consumer Choice Centre (CCC) is calling for a clear timeline for the Dewan Rakyat’s Special Select Committee on Health’s (SSCH) to review the Control of Smoking Product for Public Health Bill 2023 to ensure that the process can be done thoroughly and holistically.

The Malaysian CCC chapter representative Tarmizi Anuwar said the authorities need to announce a clear timeline to give room for the SSCH to conduct a detailed and holistic study in preparing a feedback report to the Control of Smoking Product for Public Health Bill 2023.

“It is important to ensure that this committee has adequate time to prepare its report,” he pointed out in media statement.

In the meantime, Tarmizi urged the government to prioritise regulating the vape industry that has long operated in the grey area.

“Regulating the vape industry must be the government’s utmost priority. In the interim, while the SSCH reviews the said Bill, the government can look into expanding existing legislations to include vape,” he suggested.

“This is even more vital now that nicotine has been exempted from the Poisons Act. In the long-run, efforts must be made to distinguish vape from tobacco. These are two very different products and work in completely different manners.”

Read the full text here

Consumers need alcohol facts, not misleading warnings

Last month, on World No Tobacco Day, federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Carolyn Bennett announced on Twitter that Canada would become the first country in the world to mandate that each individual cigarette sold carry a warning label, mirroring what consumers already see on the front of the pack. This would seem to be the end of the road in terms of warning labels for tobacco: there really isn’t much left to put a label on — unless someone can figure out a way to make exhaled cigarette smoke spell out “C-A-N-C-E-R.”

Unfortunately for consumers, this push doesn’t end with tobacco. There is a very active lobby for tobacco-style health warnings on alcohol, too. What started in Ireland is slowly spreading in Canada, with regional health authorities and groups like the Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) advocating mandatory health warnings.

The issue here isn’t whether or not consumers should be given the facts about when drinking can be harmful to your health. The issue is whether they are presented in a truthful manner that realistically explains how drinking can cause negative health outcomes.

Those lobbying for enhanced warnings invariably quote the relative rather than absolute risk of drinking. For example: “Fourteen drinks a week for women increases the risk of breast cancer by 27 per cent.” Taken at face value that is a jarring figure, one that will likely spook some drinkers. To many people, it will sound as if drinking two drinks a day produces a 27 per cent chance of developing breast cancer.

But looking at that increase in absolute rather than relative terms, starting with the baseline risk for each illness, communicates a very different and much less shocking message. Using the CCSA’s own data, breast cancer is responsible for 17.3 premature deaths for every 100,000 Canadian women, which is a baseline of 1.7 one-hundredths of a per cent. A 27 per cent increase in that risk takes it to 22 premature deaths for every 100,000 women, or 2.2 one-hundredths of a per cent, which is still very small.

That extra risk — which is from drinking 14 drinks a week, remember — is similar to the breast cancer risk associated with taking birth control, as pointed out by Chris Snowdon from the Institute for Economic Affairs. Understandably, the researchers who studied that slight change in risk arising from use of the pill concluded that “Such risks need to be balanced against the benefits of using contraceptives during the childbearing years.” For hundreds of millions of women, avoiding an unwanted pregnancy evidently is more than worth the small change in breast cancer risk.

For men, the same relative risk versus absolute risk difference holds true. Take colorectal cancer, for example. It accounts for 13.9 premature deaths for every 100,000 men. According to the CCSA, men drinking 14 drinks per week increase their risk of colorectal cancer by 20 per cent. But again, when looking at absolute risk, 14 drinks per week shifts the baseline risk from 13.9 deaths per 100,000 to 16.7 — an increase of 2.8 deaths per 100,0000. In terms of percentages, the increase is 2.8 one-hundredths of a per cent.

Ironically, the CCSA’s report contains a piece of information that fundamentally undermines the “no safe use” narrative that it and other temperance groups are pushing. For men, consuming up to seven drinks per week actually reduces the risk of premature death from intracerebral hemorrhage, ischemic stroke and ischemic heart disease. This is important because ischemic heart disease is responsible for 47.5 premature deaths per 100,000 men. Seven drinks per week lowers the risk of premature death from ischemic heart disease by five per cent, moving that baseline figure down to 45.12, a decrease of 2.38 deaths per 100,000.

Heart disease is the largest premature killer of men among all 19 health issues evaluated in the CCSA report. It accounts for more premature deaths in Canada than liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, colorectal cancer, and oral cancer combined. Should the health benefits from reducing its deadliness not also be included on a health information label?

There are two different ways to inform consumers about the risks associated with drinking. One is with the largest, scariest number the data will sustain that while technically true doesn’t do much to educate consumers or encourage informed choices. The other is giving consumers the full depth of absolute risk information available. Better yet, we can communicate this information to consumers without following the tobacco playbook, which falsely equates smoking and drinking. Europe has already started this process, where beverage alcohol can have a QR code on the bottle that links to information about nutrition and alcohol risks and abuse. Given that the program is still new, we don’t have data on how frequently it is used, but it is a good step forwards for consumers wanting more information.

More information is generally a good thing for consumers, but only when that information isn’t misleading — which is what cancer warnings on bottles would be.

Originally published here

FTC sues Amazon Prime for being too affordable and too convenient for consumers 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Wednesday, it was reported that the Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against the tech firm Amazon, claiming that its Prime subscription has “tricked” unwitting consumers by offering lower prices and faster delivery for customers who sign up for the service. The suit claims the company has “trapped” customers into Prime subscriptions.

Yaël Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center reacted to the lawsuit:

“Consumers know they’re getting a myriad of benefits with their Prime subscription they can cancel at anytime, whether that’s faster delivery, cheaper prices, or bundled services like data storage and content streaming. That’s what consumers want.

“That the FTC would waste their resources going after an innovative company that consistently offers value for consumers reveals more about the agency’s political grudge than any perceived harm to consumers. Consumers have overwhelmingly had their welfare increased because of Amazon’s products and services.

“Behind the U.S. military, Amazon is the most favorable institution in the country, mainly because millions of consumers have had experience with Amazon’s platform, have been employed by the company, or have used their services in any way,” said Ossowski.

“It is well known FTC Chair Lina Khan has spent her career trying to build an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, as is revealed in her 2017 article on “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”, but those efforts fall flat with consumers who benefit and appreciate their services.”

“Consumers have voted with their wallets when it comes to Amazon’s services, including Amazon Prime. That an agency of the federal government would spend valuable time and resources trying to punish a company for offering too many affordable products and services in a unique way only seems laughable,” added Ossowski.


The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva, Lima, Brasilia, and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org.

**Please send media inquiries to yael@consumerchoicecenter.org.***

Canada’s news cartel and social media link tax breaks an open internet and harms digital journalism

This week, I was invited on The News Forum’s “Daily,” a Canadian daily news show, to discuss the impact of C-18, which allows a media cartel to force social networks to pay a “link tax” for allowing articles on their platforms.

At the Consumer Choice Center, my colleague David Clement has previously written about this here and here, and it’s been a point of interest on Consumer Choice Radio for some time.

This is something that Australia already introduced in 2021, which I wrote about, and the US is currently discussing a similar proposal in the U.S. Senate, which my colleague Bill Wirtz also recently covered, as well as our fellow Dr. Kimberlee Josephson.

In the U.S., the bill is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, spearheaded by competition foe Amy Klobuchar. A version in California, the California Journalism Preservation Act, is in committee in the State Senate, and it’s expected that Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign it.

The principal idea of this plan — no matter the country or language — is that tech companies are eating traditional media’s lunch. To “level the playing field,” tech firms must pay traditional media each time a story (or link) is shared on their platform. It looks like it’s Rupert Murdoch vs. Mark Zuckerberg, or pick your legally media titan vs. tech start-up CEO. But realistically, it’s government officials, working with legacy media outlets, versus YOU, the consumer.

This is, of course, not just an attack on free speech and bad public policy, but it also represents a fundamental shift in how we view the democratic nature of the Internet.

News outlets need social media to share stories, find their audiences, and to continue to support them. At the same time, it’s up to news outlets to come up with innovative models to thrive and compete. In Canada, like in many European countries, government subsidies have taken the place of real innovation.

But across the internet, platforms such as Substack, Patreon, Locals.com, YouTube, and now even Twitter are allowing individuals and media teams to offer up news products that consumers genuinely enjoy.

At the Consumer Choice Center, we advocate for consumers who embrace innovation, competition, and a wide variety of choice. New models of creative destruction are something we celebrate, and we as consumers benefit every step of the way.

We will continue to push back against the idea of news cartels, link taxes, or other unfair regulatory practices that seek to prop up one industry at the expense of another. Not only is it wrong, a waste of funds, and impractical, but it also seriously diminishes our ability to freely choose our chosen media as consumers.

That’s at least one thing worth fighting for.

The Special Select Committee on Health needs to be independent from the influence of the Ministry of Health

KUALA LUMPUR, 15th June 2023 – The Consumer Choice Center (CCC) is calling for a clear timeline on the Special Select Committee On Health’s process to review the Control of Smoking Product for Public Health Bill 2023 to ensure that the process can be done thoroughly and holistically.

Representative of the Malaysian Consumer Choice Center, Tarmizi Anuwar said: “A clear timeline needs to be announced by the Government to give room for the Special Select Committee on Health to conduct a detailed and holistic study in preparing a feedback report to the Control of Smoking Product for Public Health Bill 2023. It is important to ensure that this committee has adequate time to prepare its report.”

In the meantime, Tarmizi urged the government to prioritise regulating the vape industry that has long operated in the grey area. 

“Regulating the vape industry must be the government’s utmost priority. In the interim, while the Special Select Committee On Health reviews the Control of Smoking Product for Public Health Bill 2023, the government can look into expanding existing legislations to include vape. This is even more vital now that nicotine has been exempted from the Poisons Act.”

“In the long-run, efforts must be made to distinguish vape from tobacco. These are two very different products, and work in completely different manners. While tobacco causes an annual death toll of eight million people each year, vape has been scientifically proven to be 95% less harmful than tobacco and the most effective quit aid,” he said.

Tarmizi has also urged the committee to hold additional engagement sessions with stakeholders who are particularly impacted, particularly consumers. Also involving experts from various fields.

“Based on the regulatory impact statement issued by the New Zealand government, during the Proposal for a Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan process, 5,200 people and organizations were involved through face-to-face or written methods. However, the Ministry of Health only conducted about 70 engagement sessions without revealing how many people and organizations were involved”, he said.

“This engagement also needs to involve experts from various fields who are not only limited to one point of view but need to include a variety of opinions because the cigarette problem is a complex problem and requires a comprehensive solution. Among them Tun Zaki who is the former Chief Justice once touched on the issue of individual freedom in the implementation of the generational endgame.”

Elaborating on the role of the Special Select Committee on Health, Tarmizi said the Ministry of Health must ensure that the committee must be free from the influence of the Ministry of Health and have autonomy in carrying out their responsibilities.

“The Ministry needs to ensure that the special select committee has autonomy in carrying out their studies without any interference from the Ministry. This is important to ensure that the members of the committee are able to carry out their responsibilities without any conflict of interest of the Ministry of Health as has happened before.”

The US is right to take aim at Europe’s protectionist food policies

As the World Trade Organization is meeting in Geneva this week, Biden administration officials have taken aim at Europe’s protectionist trade policies.

The US Ambassador to the WTO, Maria Pagán, laid out ‘persistent barriers’ that American goods and services face to enter the European market. High on the agenda were EU food and wine standards, which disproportionately put American producers at a disadvantage.

The EU’s ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy – a roadmap to fundamentally reform agricultural policies in the bloc – will only extend those existing transatlantic disputes. The core issue is not just that Brussels is already subsidising its farmers to an even larger extent than the US, but that it now increasingly requires trade partners to adopt its own policies.

A good example is the application of chemical crop protection: last year, the EU announced that it would demand importers refuse any food products treated with neonicotinoid insecticides, despite the fact that EU member countries still have emergency derogations for these chemicals. American farmers use these chemicals to prevent major crop losses through crop-eating insects.

As Pagán rightly noted in Geneva, the EU’s insistence on exporting its production standards to trade partners are ‘not appropriate, effective, or efficient in other parts of the world’, and will reduce the sustainability of food systems for non-European producers. The correct application of crop protection ensures sustainability because it guarantees high yields and thus reduces inputs, which is why the American food model is not merely more productive, but also more sustainable than the European one.

Intriguingly,. the EU’s experiment with farm policy is now being called into question in its own parliament. Indeed, the largest grouping in the European Parliament recently withdrew its support of a law that would cut pesticide use in half by 2030, citing concerns over rising food costs, as well as the effects of the policy on farmers. As Europe faces the repercussions of the war in Ukraine, the political goals of a policy dreamt up a decade prior seems like far less of a priority.

From the standpoint of trade policy, the EU is backing itself into a corner. During Donald Trump’s presidency, the US was widely seen as both protectionist and disorganised, with the administration treating the WTO more like a trading floor than a serious international organisation. However, there’s been little sign of a return to ‘normal’ since Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House – although that is not down to the US alone.

For in recent years the EU’s obsessively unilateral approach to agricultural reforms has been exposed as both impractical and inconsiderate of other nations’ food policies. It’s a stance that tells the rest of the world: no new breeding technologies, no conventional farming, no high-yield farming, no ostensible competition with European producers. To give a particularly absurd example, Brussels even restricts the words ‘tawny’, ‘ruby’, ‘reserve’, ‘classic’, and ‘chateau’ on imported bottles of American wine, just in case anyone mistakes them for the more ‘authentic’ European versions.

It is consumers on both sides of the Atlantic who pay the price for the EU’s intransigence and pettiness, with less product choice and higher prices. That’s why it’s encouraging to see the US Trade Representative and other officials holding the line when it comes to their farmers’ interests – and pushing back against Brussels’ protectionists, hyper-cautious, anti-consumer approach to agricultural policy.

Originally published here

Laisser le choix aux consommateurs et miser sur l’innovation pour assurer le développement économique de l’UE

Si le principe de précaution est louable dans son principe, il semble aujourd’hui dévoyé de son ambition première. De fait, par des précautions excessives, un abus réglementaire et parfois une forme de populisme, le Vieux Continent est aujourd’hui en retard dans bien des domaines. Et si laisser le choix aux consommateurs était la solution ?

Un principe louable qui a perdu son objectif

A l’origine, le principe de précaution visait avant tout à protéger consommateurs et citoyens d’évolutions aux conséquences inconnues et potentiellement dangereuses. Las, depuis des années il semble avoir perdu sa boussole, et d’un principe de précaution nous sommes passés à un excès de précaution, contreproductif et, à bien des égards, infantilisant. Ainsi, alors que l’IA s’annonce comme un enjeu stratégique du monde de demain et qu’Américains et Chinois investissent massivement dans le développement de cette technologie, le rapport de 12 pages de l’UE à ce sujet liste 11 pages de risques pour une seule d’opportunités. Cet exemple pourrait également se décliner pour le génie génétique, alors que les agriculteurs européens perdent chaque année des parts de marché, devenant entièrement dépendants d’aides pour survivre, et que nous devrons dans quelques décennies nourrir plus de 8 milliards d’humains ─ ce qui sera impossible sans recourir aux OGM.

La question cruciale du choix

Ceci pose la question du risque et du hasard. A partir de quelle probabilité peut-on acter qu’il s’agit d’un risque, et non d’un hasard ? Une des préoccupations principales de l’Agence pour le Choix du Consommateur est la question – et la gestion – des risques. Une grande majorité des réglementations actuelles se réfèrent aux comportements à hauts risques des consommateurs : une consommation bénigne d’alcool n’implique pas un risque de maladie, au contraire d’une consommation excessive. Un autre exemple est la controverse autour de la cigarette électronique : bien entendu, ne pas fumer est préférable en termes de santé. Toutefois, les dommages potentiels du vapotage sont bien moindres que ceux de la cigarette, et ne pas en restreindre l’usage offre une alternative moins dangereuse aux consommateurs. Il s’avère hélas que les régulateurs ne comprennent pas suffisamment la différence scientifique entre « hasard » et « risque », même si certains signes vont aujourd’hui dans le bon sens.

Il nous apparaît donc comme hautement préférable, pour le développement de l’économie européenne, de laisser le choix aux consommateurs, qui arbitreront cette question de la pertinence des innovations par l’intermédiaire de la concurrence et du marché. Certes, il sera facile d’objecter la question de l’information complète, et du poids de certains intérêts. Toutefois, ce serait oublier que ces fameux intérêts vont dans les deux sens, comme chaque médaille a, nécessairement, son revers. Mais laisser les consommateurs, qui sont aussi des citoyens, faire leurs choix n’est-il pas le propre de la démocratie ? C’est ce dont nous restons convaincus, et ce pour quoi nous luttons chaque jour.

Verbatim : « L’innovation et la liberté des consommateurs sont les meilleurs leviers pour le développement de l’Europe »

Originally published here

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