This chapter analyses legal responses to three situations: someone pretending to intend marriage, someone entering marriage or a civil partnership for ‘ulterior motives’ and someone entering marriage or a civil partnership when an existing relationship disqualifies them from doing so. It argues that, historically, marriage was used to compensate women who experienced the first form of deception and to punish the men who deceived them; that in ‘ulterior motive’ cases, marriage might have been withheld from the deceptive party; and that bigamy provided legal recognition of the harms and wrongs experienced by duped individuals at the same time as it protected the state’s interest in shoring up marriage. The chapter concludes by arguing that the move away from each of these positions over time means that the extent to which the law protects individuals’ interests in avoiding deceptively induced intimate relationships has decreased. It further argues that this development has implications for how we assess the adequacy of contemporary legal responses to inducing intimacy.

This chapter analyses crimes involving procuring sex, including procuring sex by deception. It argues that to appreciate the nature of these offences, and their place within this book, it is necessary both to understand how the verb ‘to procure’ was interpreted, including when and why it required deception, and to pay attention to the acts whose procurement was proscribed by law. The chapter provides elucidation on both fronts, showing how the procuring offences were geared towards prohibiting ‘illicit’ (i.e., immoral) sexual activities and therefore criminalised the use of deception to lure others into committing such acts. In demonstrating this point, the chapter argues that a culturally sensitive vision of what makes intimacy valuable shaped and constrained the use of the procuring offences. Finally, the chapter argues that the demise of the procuring offences set the stage for the expansion of the crime of rape by deception and that examining how the procuring offences worked yields important lessons for those attempting to engage critically with this development.

This chapter summarises the overarching narrative of this book and argues that as was as being intrinsically valuable it can inform contemporary debates about using law to regulate the practices of inducing intimacy. The discussion is organised around three sets of issues: the public and private dimensions of sex and intimate relationships, including the interests protected by law, the form of response (i.e., state or non-state), and the variety of legal response (i.e., public or private); the structure of legal responses, the meaning of consent and its relation to deception, targeted modes of deception, culpability matters, the requirement for a causal link between deception and ‘outcome’, and the temporalities of the legal wrong; and the substance of deceptions, including the dynamics governing the range of topics about which transparency has been expected. Drawing the discussion together, the chapter concludes by offering a new framework for constructing legal responses to deceptively induced intimacy, which builds on the core insight and these responses have historically been predicated on temporally sensitive associations between self-construction and intimacy.

The chapter argues that to create consumer trust requires technologically neutral rules of consumer and data protection law. The limited impact of the established rules on digital markets raises the question about the need for reform. The chapter focuses on personalised advertising as our case study. Regulation by design is the best method of weaker parties.

Recommender systems (RSs) are one of the most important examples of how AI can be used to improve the experience of consumers, as well as to increase revenues for companies. The chapter presents a short survey of the main approaches. The manipulation of consumer behavior by RCs is less a legal issue, then an ethical one, which should be considered when designing these type of systems

This chapter argues that AI can be a positive force in consumer protection enforcement, although in its current form, it has a limited range. If not used with adequate caution and safeguards or understanding of its limitations, it could lead to under-enforcement. Enforcement authorities are encouraged not to reach for AI solutions first but reflect on the best strategy for including AI-enabled technology in their enforcement toolbox.

Regulators are increasingly aware of the practical implication of such phenomena as algorithmic bias, price discrimination, blackbox AI as well as the misuse of the personal information of consumers. The dangers of algorithmic exploitation in the context of mass market consumer transactions is underexplored. The chapter describes how technology-driven exploitative commercial practices have passed under the legal and regulatory radar. It examines the extent recent regulatory addresses the impact of such practices.

Despite the benefits of the convergence of AI in ecommerce, it is necessary to address some concerns. The presence of AI-powered platforms raises significant challenges to consumer autonomy. This chapter discusses the overlap and interplay among three main legal regimes – EU AI Act Proposal, Digital Services Act (DSA), and EU Consumer Law.These laws will need to be amended with new articles to adequately address AI-specific concerns

The chapter examines the issue of civil liability in the framework of damages resulting from the use of such autonomous systems. A particular emphasis is placed on the importance of access to justice – of enhancing access for victims of harm to remedies and relief – rather than more abstract or conceptual considerations of the appropriateness of a particular regulatory solution

The responsibilitiesand liability of the persons and organisations involved in the development of AI systems are not clearly identified. The assignment of liability will need government to mo e from a risk-based to a responsibility-based system. One possible approach would be to establish a pan-EU compensation fund for damages caused by digital technologies and AI, financed by the industry and insurance companies.

This chapter examines diverse aspects of new technologies that are disrupting traditional consumer protection. These include phenomena such as consumer profiling or commercialization of data. It can be concluded that artificial intelligence represents a particular challenge for consumer law and policy. Consumer law should be technologically neutral. Irrespective of the technology deployed, the level of consumer protection needs to be always maintained. However, consumer law requirements must never be seen as obstacles to the innovation and the development of new technologies; and establishing the right balance between these two values remains a particular challenge.

The chapter addresses the notion of psychological harm inflicted upon consumers by AI systems. It ponders what phenomena could be considered psychological harm, analyzes how AI systems could be causing them, and provides an overview of the legal strategies for combating them. It demonstrates that the risk posed to consumers’ mental health by AI systems is real and should be addressed, yet the approach taken by the EU in its AIA Proposal is suboptimal.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine how the emergence of digtal delgates would affect the process of contract conclusion and how consumer law might need to be supplemented to strike an appropriate balance between utilising the potential for automation, where desired, with the ability of consumers to remain in control.

This chapter identifies three shortcomings in our preparedness for the governance of future worlds of consumers and AI. If our governance is to be smart, there must first be a systematic gathering of regulatory intelligence (to understand what does and does not work). AI givernance will require new institutions that are geared for the kind of conversations that humans will need to have in the future to adjust to a radically different approach to governance