India’s latest draft policy on e-commerce contains steps that can help local start-ups and impose government supervision on the companies handling information. For the past two years, the government is working on a policy with demands to reduce the dominant position of global technology companies such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
The government will name a regulator on e-commerce to ensure a fair market with broad access to information resources under the rules set out in a 15-page draft. The draft policy was drawn up by the Ministry of Commerce’s Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade.
The proposed rules will also require public access to the source codes and algorithms of online companies which the Ministry claims will help to combat competitive digitally-induced bias. The draft also talks about the use of artificial intelligence to check that e-commerce firms have ‘explainable AI’.
Within 72 hours, e-commerce firms will have to report details to the government, which could include information on national security, taxes, and laws and regulations.
The draft policy also notes that e-commerce sites will provide consumers with sellers’ information, including telephone numbers, connections to customers’ concerns, e-mail addresses. The policy notes that for imported products there is a strong indication of the country of origin and the value of the work done on the products in India.
Moreover, international e-commerce companies offering live streaming services using the payment tokens should be regulated so as to provide consumers with structured, controlled payment channels to perform these transactions.
