Consumer Protection Technologies: An Investigation Into the Potentials of New Digital Technologies for Consumer Policy

While the different positive and negative impacts of digitalization for consumers’ everyday lives gain much attention from both policy-makers and academia, the question on how digital technologies can be applied to better attain consumer policy goals has so far earned comparatively little consideration. This paper endeavours to fill this gap by analysing the potential of what this paper calls consumer protection technologies. With this term, digital technologies are described that are used to foster consumer policy objectives. The paper then argues that these new digital technologies can significantly contribute to the attainment of priority consumer policy outcomes, namely consumer protection, consumer empowerment as well as consumer law and rights enforcement. Yet, both more awareness of consumer policy actors and academics for the potential of these digital technologies as well as a systematic review of consumer protection technologies are needed.