Vietnam: What information must traders owning goods sale applications provide?

Currently, goods sale application means an e-commerce application on mobile equipment established by a trader or an organization or individual serving its/his/her trade promotion activities, goods sale or service provision.

According to Article 5 of Circular No. 59/2015/TT-BCT of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam, traders, organizations or individuals owning goods sale applications must notify the Ministry of Industry and Trade under Section 1, Chapter II of this Circular and provide the following information on their applications:

- Name and address of head office, for traders and organizations, or name and permanent address, for individuals;

- Telephone number, email address or another online contact method.

Above are some of the responsibilities that traders, organizations or individuals owning goods sale applications are required to perform, in addition, these entities must perform the following other important responsibilities:

- To protect consumers’ interests in e-commerce activities on mobile applications:

+ Fulfilling obligations to protect consumers’ personal information specified in Section 1, Chapter V of Decree No. 52/2013/NĐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government;

+ Notifying consumers of information to be collected via their mobile applications once such application are installed and used;

+ Not compelling by default consumers to use attached services when installing and using their applications.

- To comply with Articles 8 and 9 of this Circular if their applications have online ordering function.

- To provide information on their business situation at the request of competent state agencies to serve the making of e-commerce statistics, inspection and examination and handling of violations in e-commerce activities.

- To comply with the law on payment, advertising, sales promotion, and protection of intellectual property rights and consumers’ interests and other relevant laws when selling goods or providing services.

- In case of using applications to trade in goods and services on the list of goods and services subject to conditional business, to fully comply with the law on business conditions for those goods and services; to concurrently publicize on the applications the date and place of grant of the certificate of business eligibility for goods and services in case such certificate is required by law.

View more details at Circular No. 59/2015/TT-BCT of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Vietnam, effective from March 31, 2016.

Thu Ba

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