Critical Appraisal of Challenges to Online Consumer Fissures in Information Technology Law in India

Introduction

Technology today has fundamentally transformed the way the commerce and enterprises were dealt by society. The presence of technology world-wide particularly internet has reached to new businesses and billions of new potential consumers (Snider, 1992). By this, electronic commerce commonly known as e-commerce have developed and is one of the wildest developing region around the world and India’s greatest increasing and mainly electrifying means for business communications. While being able to access global markets, e-commerce has enabled businesses to bypass the traditional intermediaries in domestic jurisdictions. Besides, owing to its lower transaction costs, e-commerce has caused a steady upsurge in the figure of sellers and suppliers in the marketplace, thus increasing diversity and competition in the market.

Electronic commerce as an indication of globalisation represents critical periphery of achievement in the virtual world across the globe. Today Internet development has led to a mass of fresh growth for example limited restrictions for corporations as customers turn exclusively towards internet to purchase products at possible meagre price (Beck, 2001). Further, internet being an effectual medium of changing straightforward behaviour of doing commerce. However, electronic commerce is preferable rather useful because of numerous reasons, say for example, access to products, which may not be accessible otherwise, becomes quite convenient. That is true particularly in rural areas. Besides, it acts as an effective mode of entering into transactions, for consumers as well as retailers and it has made cheaper cross-border transactions which could not have been anticipated earlier.

The term e-commerce of which online shopping (word online shopping is invented by Michael Aldrich an English tycoon in the year 1979) is a component, is the performance of purchasing or vending merchandises, services, or other information done through an e-network to consumers. Further, “it is classified as distance contracts, which means that the trader (service provider, seller) and the consumer (natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business or profession), in lack of their simultaneous, actual and physical presence enter into contract not by meeting in person (e.g. in commercial premises, market, open-air market, via trade agent etc.), but only in an electronic way (European consumer centre, 2015).” 1n 1960’s first time electronic commerce was presented through an Electronic Data Interchange (commonly known as EDI) on Value Added Networks (Susheela, 2014). Today it acts as guiding the business with the assistance of electronic mass media, creating the practice of Information Technology likewise Electronic Data Interchange.

In India development of E-commerce currently is a crucial component of its trade expedition strategy. Since the economic reformation happened in India after 1991 as a consequence of introduction of economy to merge with world economy, the necessity to enable international trade both over procedure and policy reorganisations has become the basis of India’s trade and financial rules. Over the past decade internet with its web-technologies has brought technological revolution. Online shopping as a part of this revolution became extensively used across the globe general in trade and specific in Indian economy (Ray, 2011).