The government is considering a draft amendment to the law "On Consumer Protection"

Following the news, the government plans to engage in commodity aggregators, reports Kommersant. The text of the document was received by the commission on legislative activity of the government, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, and the Presidential State-Legal Department.



The draft document was developed Rospotrebnadzor. The Office proposes to introduce the concept of “commodity aggregator” - a platform that does not enter into commodity-money relations with a consumer, but allows pre-paying a purchase or service. Such regulation as Yandex.Market, price.ru and “Units@Mail.ru” can be regulated. Amendments to the law will affect foreign sites, for example, ebay.



The amendments have already been discussed in 2016 in a different edition. Compared with the previous version, in the current version there are no provisions that the aggregator is responsible only for providing deliberately inaccurate information. That is, if amendments to the law are adopted, the aggregators will become dependent on the honesty of the sellers.

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Thus, the buyer will be able to demand a refund for low-quality goods twice: from the seller and from the aggregator. The same document establishes a period of 10 days for the refund of prepayment, which can often be technically impracticable.



Amendments to the law put an equal sign between the seller and the site-aggregator, introducing an equal degree of responsibility for them, said Irina Levova, director of strategic projects at the Internet Research Institute. “But, unlike the seller, the aggregator does not sell the product and does not hold it at any point in time, that is, it cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information transmitted by the seller,” she said.



First of all, the document regulates the accuracy of the information provided about the product. Internet ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev noted that "the bill does not take into account the nature of commodity aggregators and introduces disproportionate responsibility for them compared to the seller."



Yandex.Market believes that if the amendments are adopted, they can lead to the complete closure of Internet aggregators. It should be noted that their services are actively used by small businesses, which for a relatively small fee gets the opportunity to attract customers.



Representatives of big business are in favor of adopting a law. So, the director of the Marketplace Goods (owned by M.Video) Solomon Kunin believes that the aggregator is no different from their network, because he, too, is a reseller between the buyer and the manufacturer / supplier of equipment, while bearing full responsibility.



The adoption of the above amendments to the law will lead to the introduction of double responsibility, will seriously damage the online trading positions, increase the costs of both buyers and consumers of aggregator services (small business), and may force foreign players to leave the official market of the Russian Federation altogether. At its core, the bill will slow down the development of Internet commerce in Russia and is beneficial, at first glance, only to large offline networks and retailers.