European consumer policy-coupled with the European Economic Constitution and European consumer law-is based on an assumption of rational-acting consumers and suppliers and is deeply rooted in the information paradigm. The information paradigm indicates that asymmetric information can be an impediment to welfare-enhancing consumer decision making. To improve the position of the consumer in markets, regulated information on products and services as well as on rights and remedies are seen as the key devices of consumer policy. The information paradigm suggests that there are consumers who are able, willing, and competent to deal with information provided, to read different languages, to take informed rational decisions and to enforce their information-based rights. Consumers are mostly regarded as individuals. The collective dimension of consumer law and consumer policy is largely set aside.The philosophy behind this is that of Hammurabi, i.e., it suffices to write down the law and to make sure that the consumer knows the law in order to guarantee that one's rights are taken seriously. However, as the recent "Consumer Market Scoreboard" (European Union 2011) has shown, while about three quarters of the respondents believe that consumer organizations are protecting their rights, only 13% of consumers say that they actually make use of their consumer rights on the individual level. Of those, only about half are satisfied with the results of their complaints. As the scoreboard rightly states (ibid), poor complaint handling by companies is both a source of harm to consumers and a missed opportunity to reinforce consumer loyalty.The current information paradigm is a normative paradigm. It builds on a specific assumption of human behaviour and on a legal system which is designed to enforce this J Consum Policy (2011) 34:271-276
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