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

Abstract

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 insufficient 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. Acontract concluded on a site is a special type of adhesion contract. If a site sells goods from different 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 fulfill 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.

Tools to Stimulate Blockchain: Application of Regulatory Sandboxes, Special Economic Zones and Public Private Partnerships

“…Under this Program, more than 75 companies in the Blockchain industry received government loans totaling $ 30 million. The PPP Program was created by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 outbreak to help businesses pay their employees during the ongoing economic crisis 28 (Market Wrap…, 2021).…”

“…Second, it is very important to improve the Blockchain technology standardization process, again, both at the international and national levels. At the state level, it is important to involve small and mediumsized businesses and other business representatives, as well as leading research universities and research 28 Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hovers Around $34.2K While Options Traders Pay Up for Possible ETH Upside, available at: https://www.coindesk.com/market-wrap-bitcoin-hovers-35k-options-traders-pay-eth-upside (accessed 28.01.2023). 29 Blockchain will bring 16 bill to the Russian Economy, available at: https://www.cnews.ru/news/top/2019-07-17_blokchejn_prineset_rossijskoj_ekonomike_16_trillionov (accessed 28.01.2023).…”

Modern Foreign Experience of Antimonopoly Regulation of Digital Companies and Internet Platforms

“…It is noted in the scientific literature that at present there is a need to protect the consumer not only from unscrupulous actions of the seller, but also from unscrupulous actions of the aggregator of the information about goods, works and services, i.e. the owner of the site where the buyer purchases goods, orders work or service [3]. Finally, methods of digital market research and criteria for determining the dominant position of economic entities on them, including the impact of the company's accumulation of a large amount of user data on its market position, require serious evaluation and improvement.…”