Regulation of the usage of search algorithms according to the «E-Commerce» Law of the People's Republic of China

• Alekseenko A.P.

  А. Р. Alekseenko. Vladivostok State University of Economics and Service Vladivostok. Russia

This article discusses the provisions of the «E-Commerce» Law of the People's Republic of China regarding the usage of algorithms for searching goods on electronic commercial platforms. The author aims to identify and characterize the provisions of the «E-Commerce» Law
of the PRC, which can be applied in order to modernize Russian legislation. Through the use of general and special methods of scientific research, in particular, comparative study, formal and hermeneutic methods the provisions of the «E-Commerce» Law of the PRC which estab-
lish the requirements for providing consumers with information about a product (service) in accordance with their requests are examined. Moreover, the legal liability of persons violating these standards was studied. It was argued that China has strict control over the activities
inside electronic platforms. The legislator requires that the results of an intra-platform search for a product (service) should show the search results of commodities or services to consumers by various means and fully reflect the buyer's request without taking into account his pre-
vious requests, as well as other data about him. «E-Commerce» Law of the PRC also establishes the obligation of e-commerce platforms to clearly mark the search result paid by the seller, as well as offers of goods that are based on the application of tie-in sale method. Viola-
tors of these requirements should be fined to the sum which depends on their particular actions. Moreover, responsibility occurs even when search results are automatically generated by algorithms. This means that in this case, the fault of entrepreneurs is that they did not take
various measures to control the search algorithm and did not eliminate intra-system errors.
Keywords:  digital  technologies,  digital  economy,  China,  e-commerce,  algorithm,  electronic
platform operator, consumer rights, digitalization, responsibility, application, advertising.