Counterfeit goods, counterfeit goods, goods violating intellectual property rights, etc. are rampant on social networks and websites that have not been registered with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, posing great risks to consumers.
Livestream selling fake goods
Currently, buying and selling of goods in the electronic environment such as: sales websites, social network increasingly growing, attracting a large number of customers to participate.
Along with that, many organizations and individuals also take advantage of this activity. e-commerce to mix and sell smuggled goods, counterfeit goods, goods of unknown origin, goods that violate trademarks... directly affecting consumers and legitimate businesses.
A typical case, in early October, the Inspection Team of the E-commerce Team, Department of Market Management (General Department of Market Management) was present at Eco Green Building, No. 286 Nguyen Xien Street (Hanoi) to conduct a surprise inspection and temporarily seized over 10,000 bottles of perfume.
It is worth mentioning that these perfume bottles with brands such as: True Love, First Love, Mon Paris, Maiden, Karri... have unknown origins and show signs of being smuggled. These products are sold mainly through livestreaming on social media platforms, including the account of TikToker Phan Thuy Tien.
This is not the first case to be discovered. According to statistics from the General Department of Market Management, in the field of e-commerce, in the first 9 months of the year, the whole country inspected 2,207 cases; detected and handled 2,014 violations; transferred 3 cases with signs of criminal violations to the investigation agency; imposed administrative fines of nearly 35.5 billion VND, the value of infringing goods was over 29.4 billion VND. Notably, all 63/63 provinces and cities nationwide had violations in the online environment.
The main violations in e-commerce are: Not notifying the e-commerce website selling goods to the competent state management agency as prescribed before selling goods; Using the notified symbol to attach to the e-commerce website selling goods without approval or confirmation of the notification of the competent state agency as prescribed; Not publicly displaying to consumers the policy on protecting consumers' personal information on the home page of the e-commerce website; Not publishing information about the website owner on the e-commerce website selling goods.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Le, Deputy Director of the Market Management Department, said that taking advantage of loopholes in the e-commerce market, subjects have mixed in illegal goods to avoid inspection by authorities.
"Tightening" electronic transactions through electronic contracts
To protect consumer rights, licensed e-commerce platforms have implemented many solutions. Talking with According to Cong Thuong Newspaper, Mr. Nguyen Lam Thanh - representative of TikTok in Vietnam, e-commerce platforms registered with the Ministry of Industry and Trade all have strict management processes for organizations and individuals doing business on the platform as well as goods, so basically counterfeit goods, fake goods, and goods violating intellectual property rights can all be controlled.
On the other hand, when consumers discover that the goods are not as described by the seller, or that they may be counterfeit or fake goods of poor quality, they have the right to complain. The e-commerce platform will be responsible for compensating the customer from 100 - 200% of the product value, in the fastest time. After that, the platform will return to work with the seller and impose heavy penalties on the seller and related people (possibly intermediaries such as the shipping party).
“This is the process for TikTok to find out which unit and which stage leads to poor quality goods reaching consumers. So basically, the goods on the platform are managed in terms of fake and counterfeit goods,” Mr. Nguyen Lam Thanh affirmed.
Mr. Nguyen Lam Thanh said that currently, trading activities of goods are not only on registered e-commerce platforms but also commonly occur on social networking groups: Facebook, Zalo, Telegram... these trading activities are not guaranteed by any party, the amount of counterfeit goods, counterfeit goods that violate intellectual property mostly occurs in this space.
“In my observation, this uncontrolled market is as large as the e-commerce market registered with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, leading to genuine traders doing business on registered e-commerce platforms being affected by those who do not do business on registered platforms,” said Mr. Nguyen Lam Thanh.
TikTok representative in Vietnam also proposed Ministry of Industry and Trade Continue to coordinate with tax authorities, police, and market management to inspect, review, and strictly manage counterfeit and fake goods to ensure fair competition in the purchase and sale of goods.
According to Ms. Le Hoang Oanh - Director of the Department of E-commerce and Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade), in reality, consumers still buy goods on websites or applications that have not been approved by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and mainly conduct contract transactions via text messages. Although the law does not prohibit it, in reality, most cases of buying and selling counterfeit, fake, and poor quality goods are done through such types of contract transactions.
Ms. Le Hoang Oanh said that in this case, it is also very difficult for consumers to check online and accept the risk. On the other hand, when making recommendations to the Ministry of Industry and Trade or the National Competition Commission, it is also very difficult to protect consumers.
Currently, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is very interested in promoting the requirements for electronic contracts in e-commerce to help consumers raise awareness, as well as legal awareness. The goal is to build standard digital commercial contracts, specific e-commerce contracts, thereby protecting consumers.
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