Developing a legal framework for e-commerce in South Africa

Abstract

Modern-day consumers procure goods and services using electronic transaction method (ecommerce). E-commerce is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world including South Africa. The whole transaction involves the exchange of commodities and information or data transfer between consumers and businesses. It is a convenient and faster method in comparison to the traditional physical transaction. An extension to e-commerce is the development of Mobilecommerce otherwise known as M-commerce, which entails the use of a mobile phone for everyday transactions. Mobile technology and the use of mobile devices have made the mobile commerce market more orientated due to its easy access. It is evident that e-commerce and M-commerce play an integral part of how business is done domestically and internationally. The use of these technologies comes with number of challenges such as the inaccuracy of information of the goods advertised on the internet, delivered goods inconsistent with consumer’s specifications, inability to physically examine the goods before making payment, information of the supplier, loss of data or information are some of the challenges. To address those challenges the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (ECT) was enacted to deal exclusively with issues relating to electronic transactions. The Consumer Protection Act, 68 of 2008 also provides extensive protection to the consumers. This dissertation examines the provision of existing legislation dealing with online consumer protection considering that internet transactions are borderless. It also investigates how effectiveness as well the comparison of Online dispute resolution mechanism in South African with international standards.