ACCC targets dating sites; Australian housing second most expensive in the world: Midday Roundup

Australia’s consumer watchdog will join more than 50 international agencies in targeting online dating sites that have misleading offers, unclear pricing policies or consumer contracts.

The project is part of this year’s International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network’s annual attempt to clean up the internet.

“The ACCC is today sweeping the internet to ensure that dating sites are being true and fair in their dealings with customers and provide protection from scammers,” said ACCC deputy chair Delia Rickard in a statement.

“If a ‘free’ offer isn’t really free, pricing isn’t clear, or a contract is easy to sign up to but hard to get out of, then we will find it.”

Previous research from the ACCC found Australian romantics were scammed out of $25 million in 2013.

Australian housing second most expensive in the world

Australia has been ranked second in the world in the Bank for International Settlement’s latest index of global housing prices, reports Fairfax.

The BIS index, which compares house prices against income and rent, found Australia to be the second most expensive market, behind Norway and followed by Great Britain and Sweden.

BIS nominated a number of countries in which there “could be a reason to expect a price correction in the future”, including Australia, as their current property prices in relation to rents are much higher than the historical averages.

Aussie shares open lower

Local shares have opened lower this morning, flowing Wall St’s slump on Friday.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was down 36.4 points to 5494.7 points at 12:00pm AEST. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed down 0.36%, falling 61.49 points to 16,987.5 points.