The Protection of Consumer Rights in the Digital Economy Conditions - the Experience of the BRICS Countries

• Author: E. Ostanina - E. Titova
• Position: Chelyabinsk State University (Russia, Chelyabinsk) - South Ural State University (Russia, Chelyabinsk)
• Pages: 118-147

BRICS LAW JOURNAL Volume VII (2020) Issue 2

THE PRoTECTIon oF ConSumER RIGHTS

In THE DIGITAL EConomy ConDITIonS – THE ExPERIEnCE

oF THE BRICS CounTRIES

ELENA OSTANINA,

Chelyabinsk State University (Russia, Chelyabinsk)

ELENA TITOVA,

South Ural State University (Russia, Chelyabinsk)

https://doi.org/10.21684/2412-2343-2020-7-2-118-147

Online contracts are characterized by unequal economic opportunities. The consumer,

traditionally, has fewer economic opportunities, the seller – more. Digitalization of

consumer-seller relations did not solve the old problem of insucient consumer protection,

but rather exacerbated it. Now the consumer needs to be protected from unscrupulous

actions of both the seller and the aggregator of the information on goods, works, and

services, i.e. the owner of the site on which the consumer buys the good, orders the work

or the service. A contract concluded on a site is a special type of adhesion contract. If a site

sells goods from dierent sellers (which often happens), the terms and conditions of the

adhesion contract are determined not only by the seller, but also by the site owner. Thus,

the economically weak party – the consumer, needs to be protected both against the

seller’s abuse, and against the site owner’s abuse. The article compares the experience of

regulating the relations between the consumer, the seller (contractor) and the information

aggregator accumulated by the EU countries, on the one hand, and BRICS countries, on

the other. It is concluded that the development of regulation in all the BRICS countries

is currently moving towards providing the consumer with the widest information

opportunities. It is necessary to support the idea of holding the e-commerce aggregator

responsible for any failure to fulll its obligations to the consumer. The responsibility is

considered acceptable when the aggregator has not informed the consumer that it does

not provide goods, work , services, or in cases of the aggregator’s gross negligence in

identifying the user when registering a potential seller on the site. A separate problem is

the public legal status of the online platform aggregator, since when an onsite contract

is concluded, the consumer should not receive less secure goods than when a contract is

concluded through an exchange of documents in the ordinary “paper” form.

ELENA OSTANINA, ELENA TITOVA 119

Keywords: BRICS; digital law; digitalization of law; digital economy; online trading;

protection of consumer rights; civil law; comparative law; law digital environments.

Recommended citation: Elena Ostanina & Elena Titova, The Protection of Consumer

Rights in the Digital Economy Conditions – the Experience of the BRICS Countries, 7(2)

BRICS Law Journal 118–147 (2020).

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Do We Need a Special Law Regulating E-Commerce with the

Participation of the Consumer?

1.1. Russia

1.2. India

1.3. China

1.4. Brazil

1.5. South Africa

2. Responsibility of the Information Aggregator for the Defects of Goods,

Works, and Services

3. E-Commerce Aggregators as Employers

4. Are the Activities of Information Aggregators Licensed?

5. Protection of Individuals’ Deposits from Illegal Internet Instructions

Conclusion

Introduction

In the summer 2016, Forbes Magazine announced that the title of the world’s

richest man went to Je Bezos, the owner of Amazon.com, whose fortune was

measured at 90.5 billion dollars and who unseated the notorious Bill Gates from

this ambiguous “position.” A bit earlier, in 2016, Ma Yun (better known as Jack Ma),

the owner of aliexpress.com with a fortune of over 32 billion dollars, was recognized

as the richest man in the People’s Republic of China.

What is common between them? The fact that both sites, which brought such

impressive fortunes to their founders, have one purpose – to sell all kinds of goods to

consumers worldwide. These are just two sites most famous for their size out of many

thousands (if not tens of thousands) of similar sites, including Russian ones. Some

of them oer their own goods, while others are only intermediary resources. Some

specialize in a specic category of goods (cars, digital and household appliances,

clothing, food and drinks, etc.).