The coalition proposal requires companies to sign up to it and then abide by its guidelines. These will include full disclosure of the terms of sale, an opportunity to review the transaction and discussion of all costs involved in the transaction and shipping. Standards for cancellation, return and refund policies, for packaging and security of consumers’ personal records will also be set. The details have still to be finalised.
The proposal comes at the same time as an announcement by the UK government to postpone the introduction of regulations which will put new obligations on e-commerce businesses selling to consumers.
The US proposal overlaps with the proposed UK regulations in some key areas. Because the UK regulations are implementing a European Directive, there is a risk of inconsistency between the regime throughout Europe and the new proposal coming from the US companies. This would, at the very least, could cause confusion for e-commerce businesses.
The US proposal includes an on-line dispute resolution system which would handle e-mail complaints, although its decisions would not prevent either the consumer or the business from taking the dispute to a court.