CODES OF ETHICS IN SERVICES AND THE PROMOTION OF FAIR COMPETITION

The accelerated progress in technology, modern technologies in informatics and communications, increasing globalization and liberalization that reduce the importance of borders in the circulation of goods and services have, besides the numerous advantages related especially to the development of competitiveness at a national as well as at an international level, some negative consequences determined, among others, by the multiplication of phenomena related to unfair competition, counterfeiting, piracy, deceptive advertising etc. Especially in services, due to their characteristics (intangibility, cannot be stored, simultaneity of production and consumption, heterogeneity etc.) that make their protection against the risk of counterfeiting more difficult, such phenomena are pretty common, with negative results on consu- mers, competitors and on the society as a whole. In the process of prevention and fight against these practices a special role, besides the legislation in the respective domains (competition, advertising etc.), is played by the ethical and deontological codes that have known an exponential growth in our country, especially in recent years. Our study reveals, in this context, the importance of ethical and deontological codes in services, analyses a few aspects of unfair competition as a manifestation of unethical behavior , namely, ‘the snowball effect’ and deceptive advertising, and presents comparative aspects of codes of ethics and deontological codes o a service organization referring to the promotion of fair competition.