The strict e-commerce law has been implemented since January 1, 2019. The comprehensive rectification of fake and shoddy goods will be implemented by a large margin, which will be a large-scale rectification for e-commerce and purchasing agents. Please read the detailed contents and implementation methods of e-commerce law with Xiaobian!
In the last two months of 2018, Mr. Li, a wechat merchant, crazily swiped the screen in the wechat circle of friends, cleared the warehouse, sold his agent's products and washed his hands. Ms. Qiu, who made purchases in the United States in the 1940s, handled her personal business license at the request of Taobao and the wechat platform a few days ago, and expected that the next non-standard or purchasing agents selling fake and shoddy products would be eliminated, so she could do more business after the industry reshuffle.
All this is because of a new law - on August 31, 2018, the fifth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress voted and adopted the e-commerce law of the people's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the e-commerce law), which will come into force on January 1, 2019.
According to Article 2 of the e-commerce law, e-commerce refers to the business activities of selling goods or providing services through information networks such as the Internet. Where laws and administrative regulations have provisions on the sale of goods or the provision of services, such provisions shall apply. This Law shall not apply to financial products and services that use information networks to provide news information, audio and video programs, publishing and cultural products. This definition covers a very wide range. In the past, e-commerce operators such as purchasing agents and wechat merchants walked in the gray area outside the supervision. Now there are laws to abide by in these fields, and the format of the industry will also undergo profound changes.
Background and significance of the promulgation of the e-commerce law
With the rise of the Internet and the continuous prosperity of the domestic economy, during the 12th Five Year Plan period, the average annual growth rate of e-commerce exceeded 30%. By 2015, China's e-commerce transaction volume exceeded 20 trillion yuan, and the market scale jumped to the first in the world. At the same time, the problems such as the sales of fake and shoddy commodities, the protection of consumers' rights and interests and the responsibility of trading platform under the network environment are also increasing, and the original management method is not suitable for the legal rules. In order to solve the above problems and standardize the market order, it is urgent to formulate an authoritative and comprehensive e-commerce law. In this regard, in December 2013, the financial and Economic Committee of the National People's Congress took the lead in organizing the establishment of the e-commerce law drafting group, which officially launched the legislative process. After three public consultations and four deliberations, the e-commerce law was voted and adopted at the fifth meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress on August 31, 2018.
Yu Bo, an expert in intellectual property and e-commerce at East China University of political science and law, introduced that before the promulgation of the e-commerce law, China had a considerable number of provisions related to e-commerce, including market access, consumer rights and interests protection, personal information protection and so on, but these provisions were scattered in various policies and regulations, the level was generally low, and the provisions lacked linkage, It is difficult to deal with the trading mode under the new situation. As the first comprehensive law in the field of e-commerce in China, the promulgation of the E-commerce Law means the basic attitude of the country towards e-commerce and the establishment of regulatory purposes, regulatory methods and regulatory principles, which is of great significance to protect the legitimate rights and interests of all subjects of e-commerce, standardize e-commerce behavior and promote the sustainable and healthy development of e-commerce.
E-commerce operators must register and pay taxes, and shall not infringe upon the rights and interests of consumers
According to Article 9 of the e-commerce law, e-commerce operators refer to natural persons, legal persons and unincorporated organizations engaged in business activities of selling goods or providing services through information networks such as the Internet, including e-commerce platform operators, operators within the platform, and e-commerce operators selling goods or providing services through self built websites and other network services.
That is, operators who sell goods or provide services through wechat, forums, live broadcasts and other means belong to 'e-commerce operators'.
Yu Bo introduced that the implementation of the e-commerce law will completely change the behavior mode of these e-commerce operators. First of all, except for the special circumstances stipulated in the law, e-commerce operators shall handle the registration of market subjects according to law and pay taxes according to law. If the operator fails to register for a business license, he will face a fine of up to 10000 yuan. Secondly, e-commerce operators shall also continuously publicize the business license information, as well as the administrative license information related to their business (if any) and the update of such information in a prominent position on the home page. In addition, the e-commerce law also explicitly prohibits e-commerce operators from default tying, big data ripening, brushing orders, brushing high praise, deleting bad comments without authorization, refusing to refund the deposit without reason, divulging user privacy, unlimited delay of express delivery, etc. in case of violation, the maximum fine will be 500000 yuan.
Another highlight of the e-commerce law is that it puts forward higher requirements for the platform. First, the e-commerce platform needs to standardize the platform merchants. According to the e-commerce law, the e-commerce platform shall register and regularly verify the relevant information of the platform merchants (including but not limited to their identity, address, contact information, administrative license, etc.), submit such information to the competent authority as required, and cooperate with the supervision. The e-commerce platform shall also prompt the platform businesses that have not handled the market subject to register, and provide the identity information of the operators in the platform and tax related information to the tax authorities.
Secondly, the e-commerce platform should formulate the platform service agreement and transaction rules based on the principle of 'fairness, impartiality and openness' and continuously publicize them in a prominent position on the platform. The e-commerce platform shall also record and save the goods and services and transaction information on the platform, and ensure their integrity, confidentiality and availability. E-commerce platform operators shall establish and improve the credit evaluation system, and the goods or services ranked by bidding shall be marked with 'advertising'.
Finally, in terms of the responsibility of the e-commerce platform, if the e-commerce platform knows or should know that the operator has infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and fails to take necessary measures, it shall bear joint and several liability. For goods or services related to the life and health of consumers, if the e-commerce platform fails to fulfill its obligation to review the qualifications of operators in the platform, or fails to fulfill its obligation to ensure safety for consumers, causing damage to consumers, it shall bear corresponding responsibilities according to law. If the circumstances are serious, it shall be fined up to 2 million yuan.
The rights of consumers are more protected
The e-commerce law provides laws for e-commerce. A series of provisions regulating e-commerce behavior make the cost of e-commerce operators cheating consumers and selling fake and shoddy products very high. It is reported that the new law requires e-commerce operators to register as the main body, have a business license, have a clear address and file with the tax department, which facilitates consumers to protect their rights. In addition, if operators on the e-commerce platform infringe on consumers' rights and interests, the e-commerce platform will also bear corresponding responsibilities, If the e-commerce platform cannot provide the identity, contact information and other information of the operator in the platform, he will also bear the responsibility of compensation in advance.
It can be predicted that in the future, the e-commerce industry will become more standardized, and consumers will become more assured when purchasing goods and services.
Relevant detailed rules will be issued in the follow-up meeting to improve the e-commerce law
Yu Bo said that the e-commerce law belongs to the basic law, and some contents are framework and principled provisions, many of which still need to be further refined. Moreover, due to the rapid development of the field of e-commerce, problems in all aspects emerge one after another, and relevant provisions need to be issued continuously for improvement. For example, Article 10 of the e-commerce law stipulates the exceptions to the registration of e-commerce operators, that is, individuals sell self-produced agricultural and sideline products and household handicrafts, and individuals use their skills to engage in convenient labor services and sporadic small transactions that do not need to be licensed according to law. How to define "small and sporadic" here, Whether there should be differences in defining standards among regions requires subsequent refinement. Generally speaking, the forms of subsequent improvement may include the introduction of implementation rules or implementation regulations, departmental rules, judicial interpretation, etc.
Priority will be given to the relevant supporting measures necessary for the implementation of some provisions of the e-commerce law. For example, on December 3, 2018, the State Administration of Market Supervision issued the opinions of the State Administration of market supervision on doing a good job in the registration of e-commerce operators, further refined the provisions related to the registration of e-commerce operators, and required the market supervision and administration departments of all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government to actively implement the registration of e-commerce operators. For the problems in judicial practice that need to be improved at present, for example, paragraph 2 of Article 38 of the e-commerce law stipulates that "if the operator of the e-commerce platform fails to fulfill the obligation to review the qualification of the operator in the platform, or fails to fulfill the obligation of safety and security to consumers, causing damage to consumers, it shall bear the corresponding responsibility according to law". How to determine the "corresponding responsibility". In different types of cases and situations, it may be necessary to further explore in judicial practice how to determine the responsibility of e-commerce platform, and finally clarify it through 'judicial interpretation' or other ways.