{"id":118852,"date":"2021-07-15T20:16:31","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T14:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=118852"},"modified":"2021-07-15T20:16:31","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T14:46:31","slug":"for-consumer-a-bad-bargain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/for-consumer-a-bad-bargain\/","title":{"rendered":"For Consumer, a bad bargain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/new-e-commerce-online-shopping-rules-india-7405077\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian Express <\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Synopsis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Drafted in the name of consumer interest, the proposed e-commerce rules shield vested interests. The rules are marred with multiple issues which may do more harm than good. They seem to create an adverse environment for the inflow of capital in the country, which is in dire need of capital.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Background<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government has proposed changes to the<\/span><b> e-commerce rules under the Consumer Protection Act.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The objective is to ensure greater compliance and protect the interests of consumers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, as per some experts, the rules have not given due respect to augment and strengthen consumer welfare.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rules are driven more by the desire to shield the traditional brick-and-mortar stores, and handicap e-commerce firms, especially the foreign ones. They seek to deepen, not paper over, existing fault lines.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/draft-e-commerce-rules-and-their-challenges\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>About the Draft Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<h5><b>Issues associated with rules<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>First<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the <\/span><b>imposition of the fall-back liability clause on foreign players is unjust<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. FDI is permitted only in the marketplace model and not the inventory model.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under this framework, e-commerce platforms don\u2019t hold inventory, but simply connect buyers and sellers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Second<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the rules mandate that none of the platform\u2019s related parties can sell directly to the consumer through the platform and also forbid flash sales. However, both of these, <\/span><b>adversely impact consumer choice and price<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Third<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the country of origin filter and suggestion of domestic alternatives is a push towards Make in India. However,<\/span><b> the interests of consumers, not domestic manufacturers, should be at the core <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the consumer protection framework.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Fourth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, there are <\/span><b>issues of overlapping\/competing jurisdictions.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rules restrain <\/span><b>e-commerce firms from making \u201cavailable any information pertaining to the consumer,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to any person, without the consumer\u2019s consent.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, the rules give a competing jurisdiction to the Consumer protection authority for the protection of personal data. However, this domain should be ideally dealt with by the data protection authority.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, the rules also state that e<\/span><b>-commerce entities are prohibited from abusing their dominant positions in the market.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For this purpose, the \u201cabuse of dominant position\u201d has been given the same meaning as that prescribed under Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This may induce consumer protection authority to intervene in the jurisdiction <\/span><b>of the Competition Commission of India<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Indian Express \u00a0 Synopsis: Drafted in the name of consumer interest, the proposed e-commerce rules shield vested interests. The rules are marred with multiple issues which may do more harm than good. They seem to create an adverse environment for the inflow of capital in the country, which is in dire need of capital.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/for-consumer-a-bad-bargain\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">For Consumer, a bad bargain<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":1700808186,"cached_date":1704950217},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}