Press Release - Internet Sweep
The European Commission through the Consumer Protection Network carried out a joint internet sweep at the end of September 2007 to flag suspicious sites for further scrutiny or if need be follow-up actions. By using internet search engines, such as Google, authorities from all European Member States had the task to check air ticket selling sites for any misleading practice.
The main purpose of this sweep exercise was to identify practices infringing national consumer protection law, notably misleading information and unfair contract terms. For instance it is against the law not to give clear indication on the final price. Sites selling air tickets on line should indicate all elements that make up the final price such as fees, taxes, etc. The conditions of the offer should also be clearly indicated on the website where the offer is advertised, like for instance any limitation of seats available at a particular tariff. Prices are often used to lure consumers into booking a flight only to find out that there is no flight available on the preferred date and time, or else that the price is higher or the conditions of the offer are different than the advertising message. General contract terms need also be clearly indicated, easily accessible and fair.
Locally the sweep exercise was carried out by the Consumer and Competition Division in conjunction with the European Consumer Centre. During this exercise two sites were flagged for misleading information. Both sites had an advert promoting thousands, even millions, of free seats but when checked it resulted that there were no free seats available even though the sweeper tried numerous dates. When available flights were found, none of these were completely free of charge.
In the week when this exercise was carried out, more than 400 web-sites were checked by the authorities all over Europe. Preliminary calculation indicates that around half of the checked sites were flagged for follow-up actions and a bit less than 20% are eligible for enforcement actions by the Consumer Protection Network. The Commission announced that this exercise will be followed by appropriate enforcement actions.
Odette Vella
Senior Information Officer
Consumer and Competition Division
Further information can be obtained from Ms. Josephine Borg – Director Consumer Affairs, Consumer and Competition Division, Tel: +356 21 446250-5, e-mail:josephine.a.borg@gov.mt