From Monetary Towards Non-Monetary Transactions: Consumer Personal Data Protection in E-commerce

The field of electronic commerce nowadays is actively developing and stimulating the use of cashless payments. At the same time, payments for goods and services purchased via the Internet may not always be expressed in financial terms. For example, in the case of non-monetary transactions consumers receive products (goods or services) in exchange for their personal data. At the current stage countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in particular the United States and European Union member states, have been raising the issue of the possibility of applying consumer protection legislation to non-monetary transactions (when consumers acquire goods or services in exchange for their personal data), including the possibility to return goods or get a refund for a service by demanding personal data deletion. In Russia, the problem of personal data protection is not examined through the prism of consumer protection legislation. The present research methodology is based on methods of logical, systematic and comparative analysis. The purpose of this study is to analyze the application of consumer protection legislation with regard to regulation of consumer personal data in non-monetary transactions. Comparison of global trends with existing Russian legislation and development of regulation proposals for Russia are the main results of this study.