Now Reading: MediaNama to host trust in ecommerce briefing on September 2
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MediaNama to host trust in ecommerce briefing on September 2
MediaNama will hold an online briefing call on 'Trust in Ecommerce' on September 2, 2026, from 3:30 PM to 5 PM IST. The event follows Karnataka's Food Safety and Drug Administration Department…
MediaNama will hold an online briefing call on 'Trust in Ecommerce' on September 2, 2026, from 3:30 PM to 5 PM IST. The event follows Karnataka's Food Safety and Drug Administration Department suspending the food licences of Amazon, BigBasket and Swiggy Instamart after poisonous Datura fruits and seeds were listed for sale as food. The department held the platforms directly liable, not just the sellers.
The action is part of a series of regulatory moves this year. FSSAI sent repeated notices to Blinkit over spoiled food, flagged 14 D2C brands for misleading claims in June 2026, and directed ecommerce platforms to display sellers' licence numbers. Maharashtra's FDA also suspended establishments linked to quick-commerce platforms.
The session will begin with a presentation followed by a Q&A. It will examine how prohibited goods clear platform onboarding, whether platforms or sellers are responsible for verification, and at what point a marketplace stops being a neutral intermediary and becomes a liable food business operator.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The central legal question is whether ecommerce platforms qualify for safe-harbour protection under the IT Act, 2000, which shields intermediaries from liability for third-party content. Regulators are increasingly arguing that platforms cease to be neutral when they control product listings, set prices, or handle delivery. The FSSAI Act, 2006, treats any entity involved in the food business as a food business operator with direct liability. The Karnataka FDA's decision to suspend licences instead of penalising individual sellers signals a shift in enforcement strategy. A similar test case is playing out in consumer courts over platform liability for defective goods. The next signal to watch is whether the FSSAI issues national guidelines clarifying when a marketplace becomes a food business operator, or leaves it to individual states to act.
The session will examine the gap between platform safety signals and actual compliance.
Source: medianama.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
