No More Partiality With Any Seller As Govt Is All Set To Control Algorithms Of Amazon And Flipkart

The Indian government is making new changes in the eCommerce policy that will help small and local startups. This policy will impose transparency in the operation of the giant eCommerce marketplaces. It won’t be great news for major e-commerce platforms, including Amazon and Flipkart. Because of this policy draft, there will be an increase in the algorithms' check to eliminate bias against local and other sellers. The draft has been in progress since February 2019, and then it was introduced as a national e-commerce policy in November 2019. Several rounds of drafts had taken place on this eCommerce policy.

According to the draft, all the e-commerce operators such as Amazon, Flipkart, etc., will have to bring out transparency in the discounts. Also, there will be no more use of the algorithms to apologize for being partial to local sellers on their platform.

At an inter-ministerial meeting, the e-commerce draft policy was notified by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, India. Any hybrid platforms or eCommerce marketplaces will now have to ensure no bias or partiality in their algorithms. It has been drafted to prevent favoring only particular sellers-says the draft e-commerce policy. The new policy will cover different modes and methods of eCommerce such as marketplace, inventory, etc.

As per the draft, there will be draft rules based on which it will grant access to the algorithms and a source of online businesses to the government. This would result in protecting the customers/users from digital mediated biases.

The government’s new draft of e-commerce policy focuses on clarifying how all the sellers need to work and be treated on equal levels as others. This will stop partiality against sellers and ensure foreign investors invest in the booming e-commerce industry in India.