It may seem counterintuitive, perhaps even nonsensical, but Australia’s Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) currently has no power to help consumers with complaints about the world’s tech giants, such as Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft and Hubbl.

And yet 1537 people have come to the TIO since 2023 with complaints about these omnipresent digital platforms, and complaints to the TIO have been rising year on year.

They are the same sort of complaints the TIO receives about the telcos it oversees, such as Telstra and Optus. They’re mainly about fees and charges, service breakdowns, and accounts being blocked. Meanwhile, the TIO makes clear on its website that it only handles complaints about internet and phone services. ĚÇĐÄVlog has also heard from many people who’ve been ill-served by a digital platform.

For Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert, it’s a case of regulation falling behind the modern day realities of the digital world.

“It’s heartbreaking telling people that, unlike issues with telco providers, we don’t have the power to help resolve their digital platform disputes – no one does,” Gebert says.

“When things go wrong online, the cost is profound: people and small businesses are losing time and money. People are struggling to solve their complaints directly, coming up against unhelpful chatbots and automated emails – so they turn to us.”

TIO wants to become the Communications Ombudsman

According to the final report of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Digital Platform Services Inquiry published earlier this year, nearly three out of four Australians think it should be easier to lodge a complaint about a digital platform, and over eight out of ten of us think we need an independent body in Australia to handle such complaints.

Gebert wholeheartedly agrees, which is why the TIO is calling on the federal government to change its name to the Communications Ombudsman and to add digital platforms to its remit.

“When someone loses access to their telco service, we work with the consumer and the company to resolve the issue. But when someone is accidentally locked out of their social media or cloud storage account, and the platform is not responding, there’s nowhere for them to go,” Gebert says.

The TIO breaks down digital services complaints it receives into two categories, transactional and social disputes. Most of them (78%) fall into the former and involve fees and charges, account access, and privacy breaches. But social disputes can involve thornier issues such as offensive or illegal material, misinformation and harassment. The TIO has to tell these people that it can’t help, and that no other independent body in Australia can either.

“Using services provided by big digital platforms has become unavoidable in modern life, but what happens when something goes wrong? Consumers need a well-resourced external dispute resolution body to resolve consumer complaints and identify systemic issues,” says ĚÇĐÄVlog director of campaigns and communications Andy Kelly.

“Appropriate internal dispute resolution processes should also be established and digital platforms should take a proactive approach to identifying complaints, rather than making consumers jump through hoops just to get a response.”

In a recent report on the issue, the TIO cites a number of chilling cases in which people’s lives have been upended due to an issue with their digital services provider, ranging from businesses not being able to continue functioning to accounts accidentally being deleted along with all the purchased digital goods.

Complaints to the digital platforms themselves are mostly exercises in frustration that rarely lead to an acceptable resolution. 

“We are calling for the Australian Government to expand the TIO to become the Communications Ombudsman. To support government reforms such as the under 16s social media ban and digital duty of care. It’s more important than ever that people have appeal rights when digital platforms get things wrong,” Gebert says.

The post Why your complaints about Meta and Google aren’t being resolved appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.

ĚÇĐÄVlog is fiercely independent, proudly nonprofit and non-partisan. We’re not afraid to call out shonky business practices when we see them, even when that means standing up against some of the biggest businesses in the world – like big banks, global tech companies and multinational corporations.

How do we decide what issues to campaign on?

As a small nonprofit team with limited resources, we have to make tough decisions about which consumer issues we tackle. When making these decisions we consider a range of factors, including:

• How much harm an issue is causing to people, and any specific groups of people that may be most affected.
• How consumers feel about the issue.
• Whether there’s an opportunity to win meaningful change for consumers, particularly systemic change.
• If there’s a unique role for our ĚÇĐÄVlog skills and expertise to play in winning change. 

We’re always on the lookout for new issues facing consumers, and regularly review our campaign priorities to make sure we’re continuing to fight for change where it matters most.

Related content

Current campaigns

Policy submissions

Have your say

Some of our biggest campaigns have started with tip-offs from our members and supporters – like in 2020, when a tip-off from a ĚÇĐÄVlog supporter sparked our campaign for better hand sanitiser labelling.

Together, our consumer advocacy makes politicians sit up and take notice, it helps to create new laws, it draws attention to problems with products and it forces companies to act.

If you have an idea for a campaign or any feedback on our campaign priorities, .

The post How we choose what to fight for appeared first on ĚÇĐÄVlog.