On March 3, 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation approved the Measures for Overseeing Online Transactions, which would take effect on May 1. The measures aim to implement the rules within the E-Commerce Law, provide solutions for frequently encountered problems in online marketplaces, and give guidance to new business models.
The biggest trend for e-commerce this year has to be selling goods through livestreaming. Livestreaming has brought consumers closer to the products, combining the intimacy of buying in a store with the convenience of shopping online. However, from the perspective of IP protection, livestreaming poses a huge challenge for identifying counterfeits: it has neither fixed text description nor photos, and the goods are only shown in front of the camera during the live broadcast. For these problems, the measures stipulate that online operators who transact business through social media, livestreaming and other online services must display the product or service, identity of the operator, customer services information etc. or links to such information in a conspicuous way. Recording for livestreaming shall be kept for at least three years starting at the end of the live broadcast.
Grey or outright illegal industries online, such as fake orders, bad-faith reviews to disrupt competitors’ businesses, have become a stumbling block for the e-commerce’s healthy growth. The measures attempt to solve these problems by requiring online operators may not create fictitious transactions, fake reviews, or spread false or misleading information in Article 14.
Article 13 and 32 of the measures concerns privacy protection and competition policies. The Standing Committee of National People’s Congress plans to draft and revise the Protection of Personal Information Law, Data Security Law and Anti-Monopoly Law, facing challenges posed by digital economy, internet finance, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing directly. The new laws will no doubt be guiding the development of platform economy, of which QBPC will pay close attention to.
Information source：http://gkml.samr.gov.cn/nsjg/fgs/202103/t20210315_326936.html