How about consumer protection?

(30. January 2021) jw. When buying a new electronic device, you might just be in for an unpleasant surprise. Does any of this sound familiar to you?

Just imagine you bought yourself a nice, quality juicer. It was not cheap, because you want it to last, and your quality standards are high.

Your device unwrapped, you are looking forward to the moment when the wonderful aroma of your favourite vegetable mixture will tantalise your nose. The appliance is ready in its designated place and connected to the mains. The fresh vegetables are cut into bits. Now all you have to do, is to press the start button.

After a short greeting on the touchscreen, a prompt to agree to the user regulations appears. Your user habits are to be automatically forwarded to the manufacturing company – naturally only with your consent. At first you are surprised: "What for? All I want is to make some juice."

You look on the touchscreen for the "no" button. There is none, but next to the "ok" button there is one with "more information". Relieved, you press it. An explanation follows – still in your native language – about the advantages of passing on your personal data. You are given the option to exclude certain data. Therefore you immediately press the field "selection". Now a new window opens (no longer in your native language) marked where to select the data requested. But at the bottom there isn’t an option to reject.

Inwardly, you are now inclined to simply press "OK", so that you can finally squeeze your juice.

How often have you come across situations like these? Companies like Google, YouTube, HP, Apple and many others come to mind. You might have mumbled, "alright, so what if I say “yes”? and pressed the "OK" button with an uneasy feeling and your eyes half averted.

But this time a voice keeps nagging at you, "I bought this device with my hard-earned money. I paid a lot for it. It is my device, it is my property and I want to do as I please".

We don't know how this story ends. Have you decided for another product? Do you make do without your beloved juice?

Repeatedly, you are now – like many other enlightened citizens of Europe in the 21st century – considering the thought of how to let law be law again and make coercion, extortion or arbitrariness an offence again.