CONSUMER PROTECTION IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

Abstract

The digital economy in India has never experienced anything beyond exploit yet a consumer protection problem. The burning appearance of e-commerce and online service and digital content makes it necessary to review the already created discretionary regulations and develop innovative ways to secure the interests of domestic consumers (Mishra, 2020). Even the law climate of the day in India at times lags behind in the areas of law framework adjusting to the pace of the online world (Kaur and Aggarwal, 2011). Even the remnants of consumer protection laws that were previously largely oriented on the material sale of goods and services older legal provisions may fail easily in light of the dynamics of the digital market economy, where a cross-national and an intangible transaction takes place (Romdoni, 2024). E-commerce equipment not only had the effect of democratizing the process of buying and selling goods and services, especially in remote areas, but also made consumers vulnerable to a host of additional potentially destructive activities, including fraud initiatives, breaches of information security, and abusive trade patterns (Reyes-Mercado et al., 2017). Amid the final considerations is the vulnerability of the consumer rights in the e-commerce transactions, with consumers mostly finding themselves in the low power of bargaining (Sugianto et al., 2021). This is further escalated by the fact that consumers are unaware of their needs and processes that can be used in pursuit of redress (Tjipto, 2021). This is required to analyze the state of the existing legal and regulatory framework of consumer laws in India, its strengths and weaknesses in addressing the issues of digital economy. Moreover, another factor that predisposes the specific consumer groups, in particular, the rural ones with the marginalized populations, is the digital divide in India, which can be understood as the presence of disparities in technology use, as well as in digital literacy.