Why should consumers be protected?

Answer 1

Consumers need protection for a variety of reasons, some of which (but not all) follow:

Protection Against Information Inequalities

A company knows more about their products than do consumers. Some organizations use this information in such a manner that hurts or negatively impacts consumers. For example, the knowledge that a product has blown up in labs but the decision to not conduct a recall because the perceived likelihood (and underlying cost) is lower than that of the recall.

Protection Against Deceptive Advertising

Advertising has traditionally provided a lot more "stuff" than just the key benefits of the product. Some ads may be considered downright deceptive and, given that advertising is very much a direct-to-consumer product, consumers might assume that all aspects of the ad are true. For example, liquor advertisers used to place subliminal images and pictures in the ice cubes within the drink suggesting power and sex, two things that a particular product would not likely provide to the buying consumer.

Protection Against Privacy Sharing/Invasion

Part of the toolkit used by marketers include data mining the information gathered through registrations, sweepstakes and other public-facing data acquisition. Consumers would not want companies to sell and use the information in such a manner that the privacy of the consumer is put at risk. For example, a major US call center decided to offshore operations to another company. That offshore company collected information about the client's customers and sold that information to local companies who, in turn, solicited the customers in the US for products, undermining privacy laws and data access.