CANBERRA – The Federal Treasury has warned politicians against adopting aggressive measures to prevent Australian consumers being charged more than US shoppers for iTunes songs, computer games and hardware.
Treasury last week told a Federal Parliament inquiry into alleged technology price gouging that the Internet has made consumers more aware of potential price discrimination, and gave them incentives to vote with their feet when they were dissatisfied with the prices charged in Australia.
Consumer group Choice has claimed Australians pay about 52 percent more on iTunes for Top 50 songs than US consumers, and 88 per cent more for Nintendo Wii console games.
Other observers point out that the pricing of music isn’t set by Apple or other IT companies alone – but is very much controlled by the local music companies.
