Wine Law

5 Notwithstanding, the first problem lies with the definition of “consumer”. Directive 2005/29/EC, for example, states that a consumer is “ any natural person who, in commercial practices covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession ”. This means that the definition is in a way subjective since it takes into account not what a consumer “is”, but what a consumer “is doing” 11 . Another problem involves defining the scope of the regulator’s actions. Should information to consumers be based on a strictly scientific approach? How should we cope with changes in theories or controversial assumptions by the scientific world? While this may appear to be a trivial issue, we are exposed by claims every day that may be misunderstood by consumers or simply proven inaccurate 12 . The third problem – and perhaps the most formidable to cope with – is to provide information that is not only accurate and true but also effective. Here, “effective” implies clear, easily understandable and sufficient to make the consumer more educated in his or her approach. Our view is that the most problematic issue involves reconciling clearness and accuracy. The notable problem of information overload 13 demonstrates that consumers tend to ignore information provided (e.g. by food labels) when it is too detailed and lengthy. At the same time, not providing all of the information regarding a product or service may conflict with accurateness, which makes consumer education ineffective. The EU legislator attempts to cope with these problems, but, in our opinion, fails to solve the majority of them. A large amount of information must still be provided to 11 Whereas (18) of the Directive attempts to tackle this problem by suggesting that a dynamic notion of consumer should be applied to every specific case (for instance, when a product is aimed at children, the average behavior of children should be considered); however, a possible problemhere may arise whenever a “consumer” is purchasing something for mixed purposes (professional and private). The European Court of Justice (ECJ) (20.1.05, C-406/01) specified that, for consumers regulations to be applicable, any purposes that differ from personal purposes must be absolutely marginal. 12 As an Italian, I am constantly told about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, which many people tend to identify as “how the Italians (or Greeks, Portuguese, Spanish etc.) eat”, whereas very few people in these countries have a traditional diet based on the World Health Organization guidelines for healthy eating. 13 N. K. M ALHOTRA , Reflections on the Information Overload Paradigm in Consumer Decision Making , in Journal of Consumer Research, 1984; N. K. M ALHOTRA , A.K. J AIN , & S. W. L AGAKOS , The Information Overload Controversy: An Alternative Viewpoint , in Journal of Marketing, 1982; J. J ACOBY , Perspectives on Information Overload , in Journal of Consumer Research, 1984.