Digital Intermediation and Consumer Relations: Legal Nature and Responsibility

The paper is devoted to the study of the issue of information intermediation in the digital environment, determination of the place of the aggregators’ owners in the system of consumer relations and development of a general rule aimed at creating a uniform formula for determining the scope of rights, obligations and limits of responsibility of digital intermediaries in consumer legal relationships.

Based on the conducted research, the author concludes that consumer relationships when transactions are made with the participation of the owners of aggregators indicate the existence of such a phenomenon as digital (online) intermediation, the manifestation of which has characteristic features depending on the degree of influence (involvement) of the activities of the owners of aggregators on the direct participants of such relations, i.e. on entrepreneurs and consumers. It is also noted that the role and function of a digital intermediary are made dependent on the involvement of the latter in the relationship between merchants and consumers. In order to determine the scope of rights, obligations and limits of responsibility of digital intermediaries, it is permissible to use the following formula: the greater the  involvement of a digital intermediary in the relationship between entrepreneurs and consumers, the more rights, duties and responsibilities arise for the intermediary when interacting with direct participants in consumer relations.

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