The consumer affairs ministry has issued draft e-commerce guidelines for consumer protection 2019 that calls for e-commerce entities to maintain a level-playing field and prohibit influencing the price of goods and services directly or indirectly.

The draft norms mention that an e-commerce company doing business in the country shall be a registered legal entity under the laws of India.

The guidelines released on Friday state that the companies should not “adopt any trade practice which for the purpose of promoting the sale, use or supply of any goods or for the provision of any service, or composite supply, adopt any unfair methods or unfair or deceptive practice that may influence transactional decisions of consumers in relation to products and services”.

The draft norms further restrict companies from falsely representing themselves as consumers or posting reviews about goods and services in their name. The ministry has sought stakeholders’ comments on the guidelines by September 16. The department for promotion of industry and internal trade’s (DPIIT) revised norms on foreign direct investment (FDI) in e-commerce that came into effect on February 1 also adopted a similar approach, barring e-commerce companies from influencing sale price of goods and services.

The commerce ministry is already drafting a separate e-commerce policy that proposes regulating cross-border data flows, setting up storage facilities locally and establishing a data authority to devise a framework for sharing data. Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart jointly hold a dominant share of the country’s e-commerce market. Recently, Amazon said it holds 30% share in India market. Businesses of traditional brick-and-mortar retailers have been hit by raining discounts given by online platforms and have long been stressing on the need to regulate them.

To enable consumers to make ‘informed decisions’, the consumer affairs ministry has proposed that e-commerce entities should display terms of contract between themselves and the sellers relating to return,refund, exchange, warranty, delivery, mode of payments and grievance redressal mechanism. The draft norms also puts the onus on the companies to ensure advertisments for marketing of goods or services are consistent with the actual characteristics. It provides for protection of ‘personally identifiable information of consumers’ and outlines that the companies should ensure such data collection, storage and use comply with provisions of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008.