Online Mediation Consumer Tools : MediWeb and MediApp

Nowadays, the Spanish administration of justice is in crisis. The increase of lawyers, the workload of the administration staff and the current economic crisis are some reasons for the emergence of relational justice as an alternative. Therefore, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and particularly Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) have become a relevant issue for both citizens and governments. In this work we introduce two different applications that are included in the Ontomedia project, whose main target is to allow users and professionals to meet in a community-driven web platform. The first one is called MediWeb and is implemented to run in classical browsers; the second application is called MediApp and is implemented to run in a Smartphone. Both applications are devised to: 1) the user would be able to consult the regulations, both soft and hard law rules that are in force in Spain; 2) offer different services to the platform users taking advantage of the smartphone devices; and 3) consult a Frequently Asked Questions repository. 1. Introduction: Relational justice in the consumer field Today, the administration of Justice in Spain is in crisis. As stated in the White Book on Mediation in Catalonia [1], in the last thirty years, the Spanish legal culture has suffered a profound change in which it has dropped from a non litigation culture to a litigation culture [2]. One of the reasons may be the sharp increase of lawyers in Spain: from 1980 to 2009 the number of lawyers multiplied by four. Following the sharp increase in litigation, the workload of judicial secretaries and judges has become unaffordable. Furthermore, some endemic deficiencies related to the work of clerks and judicial secretaries have not been solved yet. (Ibíd) And on the top of it, the current economic crisis has stressed the difficulties that the administration of justice will have to recover from this situation. In this scenario different initiatives within the so-called relational justice [3] appear as an ideal solution for both citizens and governments. Indeed, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes and mechanisms are being fostered by institutions, universities and governments and some of them are being implemented. Certainly, the EU Directive 52/2008 on certain aspects on mediation in civil and commercial matters represents a milestone in the consolidation of this movement in Europe, and now Member States must proceed to its transposition. Furthermore, there is quite a consensus among scholars In fact, since the transposition deadline was for May 2011, the Spanish Government is already late. regarding the introduction of ADR procedures as these may partially alleviate the economic costs incurred by the administration of justice [4]. Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes and Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), that is ADR where Information Technologies (IT) play a significant role, seem a convenient and efficient solution to implement a bottom-up approach to justice. In fact, ODR may work well in the area of consumer law. This is an area specially suited for the implementation of IT tools and ODR mechanisms since, on the one hand, complaints quite often affect many consumers against one company (e.g., telecom and utilities companies) and complaints are usually of a low value [5]. This means that complaints may be easily standardised and therefore managed online. Indeed, some public authorities such as the Consumer Catalan Agency are already implementing consumer complaints systems where complaints may be dealt with exclusively online. According to the Flash Eurobarometer 2010, in Europe almost a 46% of consumers that presented complaints to their sellers or providers and were not solved satisfactorily took no further action. On the other hand, 15% of consumers asked for advice from a consumer association or a consumer help desk and 9% complained to a public consumer authority or regulator. This shows that these type of entities are considered trustworthy by consumers. It is interesting to note that in Spain these entities handle consumer conflicts and provide mediation services. However, only 3 % of those consumers brought the matter to an ADR body providing arbitration, mediation or conciliation services [6]. This shows that either consumers are not fully aware of these services or that they do not rely yet in these independent ADR bodies. Finally, also 3% of those consumers brought the matter to a court proceeding. Table 1: Actions taken after complaints. Source: Flash Eurobarometre 2010 As to the regulatory consumer field in Spain, most autonomous regions in Spain have exclusive competence on mediation. For one thing, the Catalan Statute of Autonomy states that consumer affairs are a matter of competence of the Catalan Government and this includes regulation of bodies and procedures of consumer mediation. This also applies to other statutes such as those of Aragón (Article 71.26) or Andalucía (Article 58.2.4). Therefore, these regional entities already provide for some legislation on mediation and they will certainly continue to do so. Thus, the new Code of Consumption in Catalonia fosters the use of alternative dispute resolution means as an effective way to solve conflicts in the consumer field. Article 131-1 states that: “Public Administrations in Catalonia shall promote in collaboration with consumer organisations operating systems of conflict resolution in the consumer area“. Beyond the scope of consumer law, the central Government is due to introduce the draft bill on mediation in Parliament. However, also in a generic scope of application, other regional entities have legislated on mediation. For instance, Catalonia also regulates mediation in civil matters (Law 15/2009 of mediation in the scope of private law). The aim of this work is to develop one application for Personal Computers (PC), named as MediWeb, and one mobile application (app) named as MediApp. The main idea of both applications is to assist consumers in their search process of useful information specially needed when a conflict arises. Thus, for instance, these applications provide with information regarding available Consumer Information Offices in Spain as well as their contact information. They also provide with a list of normative dispositions applicable in their territorial domain of residence. Both applications will be integrated in an overall mediation platform developed by the Ontomedia framework. The Ontomedia project [7, 8] allows users and professionals to meet in a community-driven portal where contents are provided by users and semantically annotated. Figure 1 highlights the information process about the consumer claim and the later submission through either Internet or the corresponding consumer office. Later, when the claim is submitted the Ontomedia framework is able to help in the mediation process. The main target of these applications are: 1) the user would be able to consult the whole set of rules, both soft-law and hard-law dispositions that are in force in each Spanish region; 2) taking advantage of the smartphone devices, the applications would be able to offer different services to the platform users; 3) both applications will contain a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). In order to improve the search process to find relevant FAQ in a repository, a semantically model is suggested (see [9]). Figure 1. Top Left: Consumers are able to obtain information needed about their claims through MediWeb and MediApp. Top Right: Then, a consumer submits the claim by either Internet or in person at the nearest consumer office. Bottom: After the claim submission the Ontomedia framework helps the parties in the process. This work is organized as follows: Section 2 is an overview of the Ontomedia project and briefs the mediation process and the main ideas; Section 3 introduces the MediWeb and Free translation from Catalan. MediApp applications and explains the applications’ features, the technology used and the given benefits; finally, Section 4 summarizes the work and points out some conclusions. 2. Mediapp & Mediweb: a follow up from the Ontomedia Project The platform we present here, MediWeb and MediApp, as to the means employed, either for PC or for mobile technologies is intended to help both consumers and governments in the management of consumer complaints. This is the follow up of a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology with the aim to design a web platform for consumers (Ontomedia). Ontomedia will particularly create a web service platform where mediation may take place online. It pretends to allow the implementation of relational justice and thus giving an opportunity for dialogue with the parties in conflict, before the dispute escalates to the courts, and therefore encouraging the "culture of mediation. ” This Section is composed of two different points. The first one is an overview of the Ontomedia project, and the second one describes how multimedia content is analyzed within the Ontomedia platform. 2.1 The Ontomedia project The Semantic Web enables machines to understand the meaning of information on the World Wide Web (W3C). It extends the human-readable web pages by inserting machinereadable metadata about pages and how they are related to each other. The term was coined by Tim Berners-Lee, who defines the Semantic Web as “a web of data that can be processed directly and indirectly by machines”. The main idea is to allow data share and reuse across applications, enterprises and communities. The Ontomedia project combines some of these trends and technologies to provide a set of functionalities to a broad community of both professionals of the mediation domain and end-users of mediation services. The main target of this project is to allow users and professionals to meet in a community-driven Web Platform where contents are provided by users and annotated by the ODR Web Platform. These