ACCC

Australia's Consumer and Competition Commission has sued two companies within Meta, the parent group of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp over crypto-ads by celebrities. The companies are Meta Platforms, Inc. and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited

The action is intended to establish that social media and other platforms are responsible for what appears there, something that all social media - and even online versions of established media have long fought against.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says that "Google’s dominance in ad tech supply chain harms businesses and consumers."

Oh, ACCC, ACCC, ACCC. Have the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission not learned that success is expected and we are remembered by our failures?

And this failure is the result of one bad decision after another.

In a notice issued 22 April, the Australian Consumer and Competition says "Petrol retailers should not use the current pandemic to further increase profits, which the latest ACCC petrol industry report
https://www.accc.gov.au/public... shows have risen in recent years, and should pass on the full benefit of falling oil prices to motorists." The full notice is below. In this teaser we ask this: with dramatically reducing volumes, if the price per litre falls in line with current oil prices (which are lower than those when the oil that is now current petrol stocks were bought), who's paying for the infrastructure and the staff? Prices per litre must cover those costs and that may mean a higher, not lower, price per litre simply to maintain a cashflow neutral business.

"Owned and operated by Tasmanians for Tasmanians," says the website of the Tasmanian Ports Corporation. It's owned by the Tasmanian state government and, the website says "Over 99% of Tasmania's freight moves through our ports." In fact, TasPorts operates all but one port in Northern Tasmania. The Australian Consumer and Competition Commission thinks that TasPorts tried to stop a company entering the pilotage and towing business with a view to lessening competition. It's the first test of a 2017 version of an existing law.

Optus Internet Pty Limited and Optus Mobile Pty Limited (Optus) have been ordered by the Federal Court to pay AUD6.4 million in penalties for making
misleading claims about home internet disconnections to consumers, following proceedings brought by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC)

It takes a special kind of b***s to continuously break one of the most widely known business laws in Australia and to keep doing it for months. Worse, when it stopped breaking it, it didn't tell anyone it was doing so and to its customers continued to act as if it was in force. What is it? Resale Price Maintenance (yes, the very thing that kept Amazon out of Aus for so long because book publishers were exempted from the law).

In the past year, two of Australia's most high profile departments have undergone so-called "rebranding exercises." ASIC and the ACCC have changed their logos. Was it worth it?

Big Warehouse Spare Parts is an amazing, if sometimes expensive, service for the supply of parts for all kinds of things, including hard to find items. But its business practices have landed it in hot water with Australia's Consumer and Competition Commission.