5 Interesting Facts about E-commerce Legislation
Despite the fact that the Internet is global and we have almost no physical boundaries to restrict our abilities to search for information, share it, order services and goods, there are some restrictions in the legal industry due to the fact that e-commerce laws differ from country to country.
Within this short article we will review the most notable restrictions you should better be aware about.
1. Global Services are Banned in China
Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Gmail and a lot of other globally used websites are considered violating the national law and banned in China. Great efforts are made to overcome this barrier. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, has visited this country many times, had conversations with the authorities and even shaked hands with General Secretary Xi Jinping — but Beijing hasn’t changed its mind yet.
2. Offline Laws Go Online
E-commerce is quite a new phenomenon in comparison to brick-and-mortar trade that has been existed for thousands of years and where the laws regulating activities are well-established. But nowadays e-commerce and online shopping fall under conditions set by new legislative acts, and users are not completely free to do anything they want since it may constitute a threat for other people (for example, arms and drug trafficking) or violate their rights (various monopolies). So, the reasons for restrictions are the same as for conventional offline trade.
3. Sharing Economy Makes Things Complicated
Emergence of Airbnb, Uber and other similar online services making up so-called “sharing economy” has been regarded as a legal dilemma. The confusion arises from the fact that private sales are often regulated in a different manner than b2c sales. Let’s take the following example: apartment owners registered in the Airbnb database. Are they supposed to undergo the same checks and have rights similar to those for hotel owners? Airbnb and its legal advisors are sure that it is not required, but authorities may think differently. The main threat here is that this unregulated gray area can become a breeding ground for different kinds of fraud and crimes.
4. Not All Privacy Policies Are The Same
In most cases, offline shopping implies anonymity: no one asks you for your personal data when you buy something in a conventional store. No needs to disclose any information: you just pay with your card or cash — that’s it.
For online shopping the situation is opposite. On the internet, in order to buy something, a person need to provide bank details, an address, email address and a dozen of other details. This information may be obtained by third parties and misused. To prevent this, strict privacy policies shall be implemented. It is a requirement for all companies engaged in e-commerce that customer personal data shall be protected. However, privacy policies can vary from company to company, and it is a burning issue to unify and standardize such policies.
5. Large Companies Break the Law
There is a point of view that authorities and regulations put obstacles hindering the innovation and creativity of market players. Google, Alibaba, Amazon and other juggernauts may have broken e-commerce laws to push technologies to a new level and conquer new market shares. But, at the same time, small companies cannot afford to be engaged in lawsuits related to breaking the existing e-commerce order and law, while large businesses do it successfully. Such situation may result in disbalance in the market and suppression of small but brilliant innovation projects.
