A woman shops online via her smartphone (Photo: VNA)Dau Anh Tuan, head of the VCCI’s Legal Department, said at the VCCI’sconference about e-commerce on social media on March 23 that the practice ofusing social media to market an e-commerce business was increasing in recentyears.
However, the legal framework for e-commerce and social networks were mainlybuilt in 2013, which proved to be outdated while e-commerce was developing veryrapidly.
It was necessary to review and adjust the legal framework to better manage the developmentof e-commerce, Tuan said.
The VCCI’s report pointed out that the existing legal framework on e-commercewas applied for both social networks and e-commerce platforms, pointing outthat the basic differences between these two forms had not been taken intoaccount.
The VCCI recommended that e-commerce activities on social networks should beclassified in accordance with their operation for better management.
Accordingly, normal social networks should be regulated by the Government’sDecree 72/2013/ND-CP about the management, provision and use of internetservices and information.
Social networks which supported e-commerce business but did not allow orderingonline should be managed through regulations on e-commerce at a simple level.Only social networks which allow ordering online should be managed likee-commerce platforms.
Nguyen Minh Duc from the VCCI’s Legal Department, said that social networkscurrently did not have functions for ordering online, thus, buyers and sellersmust make contact directly to arrange orders.
He said that several social networks played a role as intermediaries, addingthat social networks still had a mix of different contents, commercial andnon-commercial.
Another matter of concern was the monitoring of content published on socialnetworks, as the current regulations remained too general. In addition, socialnetworks were facing difficulties in complying with regulations aboutdeveloping automatic content monitoring tools.
The VCCI said that it was important to develop clear regulations about content thatmust be censored or removed.
It was also necessary to verify the information of users on social networkswith e-commerce business.
The verification of users’ information could depend on how much the socialnetworks engaged in e-commerce. The information could include phone numbers,emails and bank accounts.
A transparent mechanism to manage taxes of individuals and organisationsoperating in e-commerce on social networks was also needed, especiallycross-border e-commerce.
According to Vu Tu Thanh, Deputy Regional Managing Director and Vietnam Representativefor the US-ASEAN Business Council, it was necessary to develop detailed andtransparent regulations about the responsibilities and rights of relevantparties in e-commerce business.
To promote the development of e-commerce, the costs and risks must be reduced, Thanhsaid, stressing that this would be the way to encourage participation ine-commerce platforms which would contribute to economic growth in the future./.
VNA
