Legal Measure of Online Consumer Protection in Digital Age: Study of Regional Trade agreements and European Union Laws
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Abstract
The research aims to study the nature of problems, laws, and regulations of Thailand and the European Union in relation to online consumer protection connected to related Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and related global guidelines, to analyze problems and obstacles, such as laws and regulations and legal measures necessitating online consumer protection pursuant to consumers’ rights, and to suggest ways of appropriate action in line with the provisions of RTAs and the development of Thai laws relating to online consumer protection. Qualitative research, document research, and in-depth interviews were utilized to conduct this research. This study found that online consumers, both before and during the spread of pandemic COVID-19 to date, have simultaneously confronted the following categorized problems: problems from self-online consumers, problems from online trade entrepreneurs, dispute settlement problems, remedial problems, limits of cross-border law enforcement, and protection of online consumers’ rights. Meanwhile, none of the definite and comprehensive Thai laws and international laws at the global level on electronic commerce relating to online consumer protection are currently provided so as to tackle the aforesaid categorized problems. But several parts of guidelines on consumer protection in electronic commerce developed by the UN and OECD, several laws of the EU on electronic commerce that provide definite and significantly comprehensive provisions of online consumer protection, and the related provisions of the RTAs would be relevantly beneficial to the enhancement of online consumers’ confidence by the addition of the specific statute on online consumer protection, the recognition of additional 7 necessary rights of online consumers, in particular for vulnerable groups, and effective instruments for law enforcement. Moreover, existing Thai laws have not obstructed Thailand’s implementation of online consumer protection provisions contained in binding RTAs.
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