Study On The Civil Liability Of E-commerce Platform Operators For Violating Security Obligation

The duty of security guarantee is a long-standing obligation in civil law.It originated in German law and was absorbed by our legal system.With the development of diversification of social life,the applicable scenarios and scope of security obligations are also expanding.This article attempts to analyze the theoretical basis,normative sources and the boundaries of the obligations of e-commerce platform operators to undertake security obligations based on the reasons for the security obligations of platform operators and the new characteristics of security obligations in the field of ecommerce,and combine practical cases.Discuss the application of Article 38,paragraph 2 of the "Electronic Commerce Law",and put forward feasible suggestions for determining "corresponding responsibilities".The first part is triggered from the original provisions governing infringements in ecommerce platforms.It further lays the foundation for the analysis of the theoretical basis of e-commerce platform’s security obligations and the difference between security obligations in the field of e-commerce and traditional security obligations.In the field of e-commerce,since the operators of the e-commerce platform have certain control over both parties to the transaction,the standard of their duty of care is higher than that of the person responsible for traditional security obligations.Second,the types of rights and interests protection in the field of e-commerce platform security guarantee obligations have also been expanded,with the emphasis being reflected in the protection of consumers’ personal information by e-commerce platform operators.The second part first explores the boundaries of the security obligations of e-commerce platform operators,and clarifies that the security obligations discussed in this article are narrowly defined security obligations,that is,personal information protection obligations and guarantee obligations related to transaction purposes.In view of the fact that there is still a misunderstanding about the normative source of the security obligations of e-commerce platform operators in practice,Section 2 discusses the "Consumer Rights Protection Law" and the "E-commerce Law" from the perspective of legislative background regarding the assumption of security obligations by ecommerce platform operators Finally,the consideration factors for determining the security obligations of e-commerce platform operators are discussed from the three aspects of platform operation content,platform scale and profit and loss.The third part identifies the breach of security obligations by e-commerce platform operators from two aspects: the subject and the duty of care standard.In terms of subject identification,in judicial practice,there is a situation of confusion between operators and consumers on the platform.Therefore,it is necessary to clarify that the subject of rights of security guarantee obligations in the field of e-commerce is limited to consumers.In terms of the identification of the obligation subject,the business model of the e-commerce field is changing day by day,so this part analyzes the subject of the security obligation of the e-commerce platform from a substantive point of view,that is,"matching transactions" and "commercial overall".Secondly,in the determination of the duty of care standard,the inference standard of "should be known" should be clear.Based on the theory of fault objectification and the fact that e-commerce platform operators have and control a large amount of transaction information,the author believes that the inference of e-commerce platform operations The fault of the operator is based on the data-based information held by the operator as the standard.The fourth part is about exploring the responsibility of e-commerce platform operators for breaching security obligations.This part first introduces the legislative disputes and theoretical disputes concerning the "corresponding liability" in Article 38,paragraph 2of the "E-Commerce Law",and then conducts an empirical analysis of the cases in which this clause is cited after the implementation of the "E-Commerce Law",and finally makes the judgment " Corresponding responsibilities".Among the relevant cases retrieved,the application of joint and several liability is the most cautious,and there are relevant judgments that do not analyze the specific liability form in the reasoning part,but directly use the application of joint liability to exclude the application of joint liability on the grounds of special provisions of the law..Secondly,in view of the dominant position of e-commerce platform operators and consumers,the burden of proof should be allocated flexibly when determining specific responsibilities to achieve fairness in individual cases.