China was preparing to pass a wide-ranging law that would hold ecommerce platforms run by JD.com and Tencent liable for fraudulent goods sold by vendors on their sites.
The draft legislation, to be reviewed today by China’s rubber-stamp parliament, marked a shift in the approach regulators have taken in managing the country’s $1tn ecommerce market, which has been plagued by the sale of fake or substandard products.
“It seems pretty clear that up to now [platforms] have enjoyed the same sort of arrangement as YouTube, where if someone infringes on your copyright you don’t get to sue YouTube,” said Mark Natkin at Marbridge Consulting, a Beijing-based tech consultancy.