Protecting the Digital Consumer
"The Authority's mission is about providing guarantees," says Angelo Marcello Cardani, new president of Agcom. He will lead the Italian Authority on the threshold of 2020, a crucial year for the development of the EU digital agenda. Cardani thus emphasizes consumer protection, which one of the Authority's two major tasks, the other being media regulation.
In the first 15 years of its existence, Agcom was confronted by a rapidly evolving and not always transparent market. How does consumer protection work in this respect?
The Authority must protect market competition and guarantee the conditions of its existence, i.e. preventing dominant positions that could undermine competition to extract monopoly rents from consumers. But the Authority must also protect the individual consumer, i.e. it must intervene to protect the consumer preyed upon by firms that have no moral scruples. On both two fronts, Agcom has always been active. Agcom acts in tandem with territorial Corecoms, agencies that offer direct assistance to the consumer. Unfortunately this important aspect of the Authority's job is neglected by the press.
The other aspect is that of regulation. Which relation should exist between regulator and legislator?
There are technical issues, often of high complexity, that Agcom is competent in solving, but there are also issues of a higher order, in particular with respect to the trend about digital convergence, namely press, publishing, television, phone communication, opinion-making being channeled through the Web. These involve rights, freedoms, values on which an Authority has less legitimacy in decision-making than the Parliament. There will have to be strong collaboration between the two institutions.
And what about the other Authorities?
The strictest relation is with the Authority that guarantees market competition. We are like one single Janus-like, double-faced agency. And also with the Authority on Privacy there can be administrative overlaps.
Among the issues on Agcom's table, there is the issue of Italy's digital lag.
We must invest in infrastructure and diffuse digital culture. Everything is converging towards 0s and 1s, and so it's as imperative to achieve digital literacy of Italians and their firms. There are encouraging trends already at work in the manufacturing sector, meaning that digital technologies no longer pertain to specific industries. However, thinking and working digital is harder for the older generation that built Italy's industrial system.
In order to foster digital literacy, adequate networks are needed.
Data transmission speed is a fundamental aspect: it makes feasible those activities that heavily rely on data mining, and accelerates digital literacy of users who can experience first hand the Net's usefulness. The effect of new generation networks on the overall Italian economy would be significant: adding direct and indirect effects it could increase GDP growth by 1-2%. Italy has a dramatic, structural lag with respect to other advanced economies, in terms of access to and speed of the Internet. While the EU average is 70% of citizens being Internet users, in Italy the corresponding percentage is little more than 50%. Governments and investors are not doing enough. We need rules to make the process more open and attractive. Agcom will play a role in monitoring the process.
You are an economist who succeeds to two jurists, Calabrò e Cheli, at the helm of the Authority. What do you make of this change?
I'm kind of worried: it's not easy to take on the role from greatly respected jurists. Economists have an approach the looks at the concrete outcomes of things, while jurists focus on principles. I think the fact that the choice fell on an economist tells something. All competition policy, starting with the US, is moving from a legal to an economic approach. As far as I am concerned, the seven years of my mandate can be summarized in few words: a lot of work to do.