Research On The Legal Responsibility Of E-Commerce Platforms For Violating Security Obligations

The status of e-commerce in China’s digital economy has been rising.The obligations and responsibilities of e-commerce platform operators have become important.In the legislative process of the "Electronic Commerce Law",the security obligation as a content directly linked to the life safety and health of consumers.It attracted many discussions among scholars and members of the public.Article 38 of the "Electronic Commerce Law" provides for security obligation but the meaning is not clear,leading to controversies.People focus on two issues,the specific content of the security obligation and the form of "corresponding responsibility" for violating the security obligation is not clear.E-commerce platform operators violate the security obligation after the form and scope of legal responsibility and the judgment results,will be affected by these two issues,so these two issues are important.First of all,clarify the content of the security obligations and the premise of assuming legal responsibility.Liability only for breach of duty.Considering the commonality of the content of the obligations to be performed by different platforms.It is concluded that the content of the obligations should include three categories,prevent the danger,control the danger and make up afterwards.The platform operator should fulfill the obligations with two standards as reasonable limits.One is the development degree of the society and industry,the second is the e-commerce platform operator’s own ability.The law should not require the platform to fulfill the obligations beyond the limit.In practice,whether the platform has performed the obligation with due diligence,the judge still needs to consider the whole picture of the case to judge.Secondly,before solving the second problem.This paper clarifies the jurisprudential basis of the security obligations,and explains the justification for requiring the platform to fulfill their obligations and bear legal responsibility.The reason for the e-commerce platform operator to assume the obligation actually revolves around the "danger",which is the initiator,controller and lowest cost bearer of the danger.Also,the danger involves the public interest of the society and requires the platform to take up the social responsibility.So the e-commerce platform operator to fulfill the obligation and bear the responsibility is inevitable.Finally,to solve the problem,determine the form of responsibility and clarify the legal responsibility for violation of security obligations.This paper concretizes the "corresponding responsibility",explains the rationality of different forms and builds a multiple responsibility application mechanism based on this.And considers that supplementary responsibility is mainly applicable under general circumstances,and joint and several responsibility or contributory responsibility can be applied only under special circumstances.Specifically,when the direct tortfeasor and the platform operator are at different levels of imputability.The direct tortfeasor’s behavior is the leading cause of damage.The platform operator’s behavior is only secondary.The platform operator only bears supplementary liability.When they are at the same level of imputability,if the two constitute an objective joint tort,the platform operator bears joint and several liability.If the conditions of joint and several liability are not met,and they committed separate acts of infringement,then the contributory liability is applied.At the same time,this paper analyzes the rules of application of the three forms of liability.And affirms that the e-commerce platform operator has the right of recovery after assuming supplementary liability and joint and several liability.I elaborates the rationality of establishing the right of recovery from the perspective of theory and practice.Ultimately,the system of security responsibilities of e-commerce platform operators will be formed,and suggestions will be provided for judging what forms of responsibilities are applicable in practice.