The edge of empiricism in European consumer law and policy: proposing a framework for the assessment of scientific evidence

Abstract

Consumer protection law and policy is said to be evidence-driven. In other words, scientific evidence plays a central role in guiding regulation. However, in today's digital markets, the complexity of technology, reflected by a sophisticated and still opaque interaction between aspects such as business models, the pace of technological innovation, ever-changing consumer preferences, and public values makes it so that gathering this evidence is often difficult, if not impossible. In this contribution, I argue that evidence-based consumer law and policy – particularly based on consumer behaviour – has serious limitations which ought to be acknowledged more clearly and directly by lawmakers. To exemplify these limitations, I turn to the very actual topic of minors’ mental health and social media, where I make a general overview of the scientific debates on the matter. I subsequently propose a novel evidence assessment for consumer protection regulators.