A Study on Regulation of E-Commerce in India: Issues and Challenges

Abstract India’s e-commerce industry has grown considerably, enabled by technological modernization and change in the consumption realities, ease of access to the internet, etc. However, the expansion of this industry has been accompanied by regulatory challenges in the areas of consumer protection, data privacy, fair competition, taxation, and FDI compliance. This paper provides a critical analysis of the legal structure about the IT Act, 2000, Consumer Protection Act, 2019, FDI Policy, and Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 to understand the current position of regulation including fragmentation of laws and enforcement, regulatory uncertainty. The main challenges included authenticity of products/deals, misuse of data, platform bias, and marginalization of the MSME sector. The paper presents a call for regulatory reform in the development of a comprehensive, agile policy approach to facilitate a fair, safe, and equitable digital marketplace, and makes recommendations for future regulation.