Kirillova, et al.: The Principles of the Consumer Right Protection in Electronic Trade: A Comparative Law Analysis
International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues |
Vol 6 • Special Issue (S2) • 2016
118
community. Special attention is paid to the issues of the consumer
right protection in the sphere of electronic trade, and to the
problems of international cooperation in the consumer right
protection (Wang et al., 2015).
It should be noted that the retail trade in the Internet and via the
Internet is growing, even in spite of the financial crisis, there is not
a slightest trend to reduction, and this is caused by the growth of
the number of sites, selling goods and services (Figure 1).
The global electronic market brings about new and complicated
issues in the sphere of consumer right protection. Until recently,
the consumer right protection was a domestic matter in most
countries: For instance, the US consumers traditionally dealt
with the US firms, relied on the legal systems of protection that
were familiar to them, and applied for the protection to the courts
nearby. American companies that could face numerous obstacles
in direct retail sales to the consumers in foreign markets, in
most cases, sold their goods directly to the consumers in the
USA, in accordance with the American legislation on markets.
And the American agencies of consumer right protection,
both at the states and the federal levels, focused their effort
on American frauds, who aimed at American consumers
(Strzębicki, 2015).
The new type of market challenges the national regimes of
consumer right protection and appeals for some new structure
that would safeguard the consumers effectively and provide a
predictable legal environment to business operators (Kirillova
and Blinkov, 2015). Without mutual trust between consumers
and business operators, the market will not be able to fulfill its
potential.
Devising a structure that works, for both the judicial system and
in applied legislation, is just a part of the task of safeguarding
the consumer right on the global scale. The market competition,
the alternative solutions to touchy issues, the partial overlapping
of the legislation of different countries, the initiatives of the
private sector, and international cooperation – are also the keys
to creating a safe global electronic market. Still, becoming
global presents a number of complicated challenges before a
market. Like the trade with substandard products, for instance,
since electronic trade did not only create an opportunity for the
growth of the turnover of the “digital” goods, but of the forged
goods as well. According to the data of the US Federal Trade
Commission, in 2014, the ratio of the various kinds of fraud in
the Internet to the number of all fraud transactions amounted
to 42% (which equals to the sum of 55.7 million dollars), in
2012 – 45% (110.3 million dollars), and in 2013 this figure
was equal to 55% (166.6 million dollars) (Falk and Hagsten,
2015). Therefore, consumers face a problem of the lack of legal
protection and of means of redress. Business operators deal with
the problem of costs and unpredictability of the juridical and
legislation environment of operation and, therefore, the principles
of the consumer right protection specifically for the electronic
market must be developed, which would contain utterly new
provisions, apart from the traditional principles of consumer right
protection, that would safeguard the protection of the rights and
interests of the online consumers.
Many foreign researchers examined these problems (like
D. G. Bowersocks, B. Gates, D. G. Closs, K. Patel, L. Reymann,
F. Trilivan) and suggested their projects in this area.
The international electronic trade is now at the stage of its early
development. The correct approach to devising the principles of
electronic trade will not only allow to protect the consumer right,
but will also guarantee the achievement of the full extent of the
consumer benefits that are inherent to the global market.
