Ecommerce platforms are currently protected by the safe harbour provisions as prescribed in Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000
Under the upcoming ecommerce norms, the government might put more responsibility on ecommerce intermediaries
MeitY has sought the response of ecommerce firms like Flipkart and Amazon on the issue, following which consumer affairs ministry will take the final decision
The consumer affairs ministry is reportedly working on making ecommerce companies such as Amazon and Flipkart liable for fraud committed by sellers on their platforms by attaching “fallback liability” to their role as intermediaries.
The ministry would form the rules after ecommerce companies respond to queries on the issue, sent to them by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), an official was cited as saying in an ET report.