Norwegian Consumer Council

The Consumer Council of Norway (Norwegian: Forbrukerrådet) is a Norwegian government agency and consumer protection organisation established in 1953.[1] Its objectives are to work to increase consumer influence in society, to contribute to consumer-friendly developments, and to promote measures that strengthen the position of consumers. The Consumer Council is financed by the Norwegian government and is free to develop an independent consumer policy, and is independent of commercial interests and other organisations.

About the organisation

The Consumer Council has its own board of directors and statutes laid down by the Ministry of Children and Equality, and is chaired by Director Inger Lise Blyverket.

There are about 140 employees in the Consumer Council, who works at the headquarters in Oslo and at the offices in Tromsø/Svalbard, Stavanger and Skien.

The Council is organized into four departments “Communication and digital services”, “Consumer policy”, “Dispute resolution” and “Staff”.

The Consumer Council shall help to put consumer questions on the agenda, and promote consumers' interests by:

• Influencing authorities, organisations and businesses
• Educating consumers through information, advice and guidance
• Providing assistance to individual consumers

Consumer Policy

The Consumer policy department runs the Consumer Council's work to influence governmental and business life in a consumer-friendly direction through dialogue, impact work and publications. The policy work is aimed at areas that have a high economic impact for consumers, where consumer satisfaction is low, and potentially could to affect all sectors.

In some cases, existing regulations are not enough, and the Consumer Council is therefore working politically to strengthen legal consumer protection. In other cases, the work is about affecting the competitive situation and how markets operate.

The Consumer Council also has an extensive international cooperation with sister organizations in Europe, and especially with the umbrella organization in Brussels; BEUC.

The priority policy areas of the Consumer Council are Housing, Digital services, Finance, Commerce, and Public services.

Assisting consumers

Each year, 80 000 consumers directly contact the Norwegian Consumer Council for assistance.

The Consumer Council also offers free legal dispute resolution between consumers and business, and helps resolving about 10 000 formal disputes every year.

The dispute resolution offices are located in Skien, Stavanger and Tromsø. In addition, there are four employees located at Svalbard, as a part of the Tromsø office.

Profiled cases

• On January 25, 2006, the Consumer Council filed a complaint regarding iTunes' Term of Service.[2]
• On October 15, 2015 The Consumer Council filed a lawsuit against Norways largest bank, DNB on behalf of 180,000 consumers.
• On May 25, 2016 The Consumer Council read app terms for 32 hours to demonstrate what reading the terms and conditions actually entails. The stunt gained world wide attention.
• On June 27, 2018, the Consumer Council of Norway published the report "Deceived by Design: How Tech Companies Use Dark Patterns to Discourage Us from Exercising Our Rights to Privacy" which provides examples of how Google, Facebook and Microsoft nudge users into choosing the less privacy friendly options.
• On January 14, 2020 the Consumer Council of Norway published the report Out of control How consumers are exploited by the online advertising industry which provides examples on how 10 popular mobile were transmitted user data to at least 135 different third parties involved in advertising and/or behavioural profiling.[3]