Germany supports digital rights charter 

In a meeting with a BEUC delegation, the German Minister for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Horst Seehofer (CSU - Bavarian Conservative),  expressed his sympathy for concerns brought forward by consumer advocates including BEUC President Rasmus Kjeldahl and Secretary General Jim Murray. 

BEUC expressed its concern about "unfair and incomprehensible licensing agreements, misuse of private data, devices and digital content which are not interoperational, 
[and] lack of information," among other things - issues that BEUC hopes to address with a charter on Consumer Rights in the Digital World. Agreement was found, BEUC says, to treat this charter as a matter of urgency during the German Presidency in the first half of 2007. 

BEUC's demands are in line with a new "important focal point" of Seehofer's ministry announced in March 2007, on the occasion of the World Consumer Day. At this occasion, a ministry speaker named issues such as "e-commerce, digital telephony, Voice over IP, Digital Rights Management, RFID and electronic pay-back cards", which "meet a lot of scepticism and distrust in society". He named the reasons as being "a lack of trust in security and data protection and the intransparent complexity of technical innovations, but most of all a potential for abuse by, for example, identity theft".

Seehofer said: "We have to take consumers' fears and concerns seriously if we want to safeguard market opportunities and innovation potential on the long run. Good quality of life, innovation and economic growth can only be achieved if the interests of the industry and of consumers are balanced."