Consumer Protection in E-Commerce Contracts through Digital Platforms: A Comparative Study.

Abstract

Digitalization has turned platforms from passive technical hosts into algorithmically active vertically integrated intermediaries‚ with full control over the pricing‚ ranking‚ and performance of consumer transactions‚ as well as the entire lifecycle of such transactions․ This has brought the passive hosting model underlying the e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) in the EU and the Communications Decency Act Section 230 in the United States into irreconcilable tension with platform-based economic reality․ Drawing on doctrinal comparative analysis across the EU‚ US‚ China and the UAE‚ this article shows how existing doctrine fails to address a persistent privity-control mismatch‚ where consumers are the formal counterparty to third-party sellers but platforms in fact control price-setting‚ ranking‚ fulfillment‚ and other consumer-facing information․ Drawing on the CJEU's active role rationale in Louboutin v Amazon (2022)‚ Article 6(3) of the DSA‚ the Product Liability Directive (EU) 2024/2853 and doctrinal comparative considerations of China's codified regime for joint and several liability and of the UAE's nascent law on e-commerce‚ the article proposes a new de lege ferenda framework for Active Intermediary Liability (AIL) that will operationalize the evidence-based control criteria within a tiered joint liability framework․ This is done by replacing the active/passive divide with a coherent and systematic threshold spanning product liability‚ contract liability and data-protection liability and articulating that threshold for the huge potential that de lege ferenda has for transposition as a model for other jurisdictions‚ especially in relation to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states where consumer-protection laws have been reformed but where never-before-in-the-world designs for intermediary liability are missing․․.