Jordanian Legal Provisions for Electronic Commerce: Consumer Protection Perspectives—A Comparative Study

Abstract

E-commerce transactions are the more preferred commercial transactions today, rendering the conventional rules and norms of goods and services sale obsolete. The legal norms, statutes, or rules of commercial transactions today, should be upgraded. Online consumers need protection. Firstly, the Internet as commercial transactions medium needs legitimization. This study examined the aptness of Jordanian laws in protecting e-commerce consumers, considering that Jordan has no specific law to govern e-commerce. Legal provisions for contracts and e-commerce in Jordan are dispersed in some laws including the Jordanian Civil Law 1976, the Electronic Transactions Law 2015 and the Consumer Protection Law 2017. This study employed doctrinal method in its comparative analysis, with primary and secondary sources (statutes, cases, guidelines, textbooks, journal articles, online resources, websites, databases, etc.) as support. Results showed insufficient law governing e-commerce in Jordan. Hence, Jordan needs to establish a law that specifically regulates e-commerce, particularly in areas like e-store establishment, e-contract formation, goods return, money refund, handling of unfair e-commerce contract, and obligation violations.