A coalition of 13 governments yesterday launched econsumer.gov, an information exchange site that hopes to respond to the threat of cross-border internet fraud and to enhance consumer protection and consumer confidence in e-commerce.

The US Federal Trade Commission, as President of the International Marketing Supervision Network ("IMSN") is leading the venture. The other countries involved are the UK, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea Sweden and Switzerland.

The project has two components: a multilingual public web site and a government, password-protected web site. The public site is expected to provide general information about consumer protection in all IMSN countries, contact information for consumer protection authorities in those countries, and an on-line complaint form. At present, the site offers only contains links to the sites of relevant agencies in each country and these sites are not yet multilingual.

A database of consumer complaint data and other investigatory information will be operated by the FTC. The incoming complaints will be shared through the government web site with participating consumer protection law enforcers that have signed a confidentiality agreement.

See: www.econsumer.gov.

We are processing your request. \n Thank you for your patience. An error occurred. This could be due to inactivity on the page - please try again.