Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet
sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
A few months ago, I bought a nice mountain bike from a well-known vendor. Right from the start I had issues with the front crank. So I went online and founds hundreds of people having exactly the same problem on the very same model. It gave me a much stronger case to get the shop to replace the problematic part by another brand: they could not claim that it was my fault. So yeah, online consumer activist is good, but you already knew that, right ?
Nobox: Only simple products.
Wrong! The football you are referring is aka soccer or "Association Football". There is also rugby football, etc. So your bigot-like comment is way off. See quote from Wikipedia:
"The rules of football were codified in England by the Football Association in 1863, and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of football played at the time, specifically rugby football. The term soccer first appeared in the 1880s as a slang abbreviation of Association football, often credited to Charles Wreford-Brown.[18]
Today the sport is known by a number of names throughout the English-speaking world, the most common being football and soccer. The term used depends largely on the need to differentiate the sport from other types of football played in a community. Football is the term used by FIFA, the sport's world governing body, and the International Olympic Committee. For more details of naming throughout the world, please refer to the main articles above."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(soccer)