consumer protection

Chiang Rai, Thailand, 30 July, 2009— The Telecommunications Consumer Protection Institute (TCI) along with three other consumer protection organizations launches the Chiang Rai Declaration which pushes for consumer protection in the area of ASEAN telecommunications.

Communications services are essential to everyone and should have consumer safeguards including the promotion of public interest that typifies other critical utilities.

Consumers International is pursuing a new line of work in this area, following a call from our members the CI-supported conference The Next Wave of ASEAN Consumer Protection in Telecommunications held from July 27-30 in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Amongst the outputs from the conference, which describe the background for CI's interest in this area, are:

Consumer groups from around the Asia-Pacific region are currently meeting in Chiang Rai, Thailand for a conference on The Next Wave of ASEAN Consumer Protection in Telecommunications, at which I presented today on the relationship between consumer protection and Access to Knowledge (A2K). As promised to conference delegates, I am posting the slides from that presentation below, in two open formats.