since the legislative process was initiated at the end of 213, the Electronic Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the "Electronic Commerce Law"), which has attracted much attention, has recently made new progress. Lv Zushan, head of the drafting group of the e-commerce law, said that the draft of the e-commerce law will be submitted to the National Congress for deliberation soon, and the full text will be published on the national website after it is passed.

in the years since the drafting of the e-commerce law, the e-commerce industry has undergone tremendous changes. Therefore, legislators must also want to introduce a new law as soon as possible, otherwise it will be even more embarrassing if it is "out of date".

From the drafting to the embryonic form of this law, let's take a look at what it has gone through.

this law has been drafted for four years, and 16 topics were investigated in the early stage, and four versions of the outline were produced.

Image source: China Service Outsourcing Research Center

In October p>213, the 12th National Congress of * * * * included the legislative work of e-commerce, and then set up the drafting group of e-commerce law.

in December p>214, the drafting group conducted a special investigation on 16 specific issues and completed the research report.

in addition, the state administration for industry and commerce, the national development and reform commission, the people's bank and other ministries and commissions have also conducted research on specific issues in the field of e-commerce, such as electronic payment, intellectual property rights, consumer rights protection, taxation and information security.

in p>215, the e-commerce law formed an outline of four versions, including the Ministry version, the enterprise version of China Electronic Commerce Association, the academic institution version of Peking University, and the local version of the local financial and economic committee.

After discussing the outlines of these four versions, the drafting group of E-commerce Law formed two versions of the proposed draft legislation, and then these two drafts were re-integrated after listening to the opinions of all parties, and finally formed the only version submitted for trial at the end of 215.

"Four in one" is rare in the legislative process of a law in the past. It is precisely because e-commerce is a new thing, with rapid development and complicated aspects, that the drafting of relevant laws needs to take care of all aspects of opinions.

in addition to traditional business activities, e-commerce also covers many fields and platforms such as the internet and logistics. Therefore, e-commerce legislation should belong to comprehensive legislation. At the same time, the e-commerce law should regulate various problems in the e-commerce industry or field, which is a special law.

let's see what issues you will care about in this law.

I. Consumer data protection

It is said that this is also the core legal issue in the development of e-commerce.

in the process of online shopping, you will inevitably leave personal information, such as name, address, contact information, etc. Merchants, e-commerce platforms, payment systems and logistics will naturally grasp this information, but according to the provisions of the draft e-commerce law, this information belongs to you, not to e-commerce.

At present, e-commerce companies use the collected user big data to provide marketing services for brands, but after the introduction of the e-commerce law, it may be necessary to

conduct "strict and irreversible anonymization" of personal information.

second, clarify the responsibility of e-commerce platform

this is one of the most concerned contents in e-commerce law.

at present, there is no clear definition of the legal status of e-commerce platform in China, and the e-commerce law is to stipulate the status, nature and responsibility of e-commerce platform. It really should be.

for example, if you buy fake goods in the process of online shopping, not only the merchants should be responsible, but also the e-commerce platform should be responsible.

But just because the e-commerce experience is good, we should bear more responsibilities than offline stores. After all, 8% of the retail in China takes place offline, and the main channel for selling fake goods is offline.

Third, regulate unfair competition in the field of e-commerce

The manifestations of unfair competition in the field of e-commerce include merchants stealing pictures, price wars that are not worthy of the name, and "brushing the bill" and so on.