2. The legislation
There are several statues that relate to consumer protection generally that may be applied to e-commerce
in Malaysia. There are a host of statutes, which are applicable to conventional transactions that can also be
applied to e-commerce dealings, but for the purpose of this paper I will focus on the Trade Descriptions Act
1972. It is also pertinent to reiterate that the Consumer Protection Act 1999 does not apply to electronic
transactions. Section 2(g) of the Act specifically excludes such transactions, unless the Minister by a Gazette
declared otherwise. It looks that there is a beacon of hope for electronic transactions to be included within
the ambit of the Act as its possible implementation under the Act can be made just through Ministerial
declaration, not through legislative amendment. One can only guess the reason for e-commerce present
exclusion of the Act: it could be that the Tribunal concerned dealing with consumers complaints is not yet
ready to arbitrate disputes on electronic transactions. Because of the legal uncertainties surrounding ecommerce,
a host of problems are very likely to crop up emanating from such transactions if the Tribunal
were to arbitrate the disputes. Simply said, the authorities and perhaps the litigants themselves are not ready
to enforce consumer rights transacting in e-commerce under the Consumer Protection Act.
The requirement of legal protection on e-commerce transactions stems from several underlying
principles [1]; [2]: