Thailand tightens e-commerce control
The Royal Gazette published on July 9 an announcement of the Electronic Transactions Development Agency's (ETDA) name list of 19 high impact digital platforms that are required to comply with Section 20 of the existing Digital Platform Services (DPS) royal decree.
The announcement came into effect as of July 10.
Section 20 of the law obliges these platforms to conduct a business risk assessment and risk management.
These platforms sell or advertise products subject to official standards and fall under special compliance rules due to their potential risks to economic stability, financial security and the public's trust in digital systems.
These platforms include Shopee, Lazada, One2car.com, Grab, Kaidee.com, SIA E-Auction System, LINE Shopping, Alibaba, NocNoc and AliExpress. The others are Thisshop, Rakmao, Taobao, SCGHome, ONESIAM Application, ReadyPlastic Auction, ROOTS Platform, Temu and eBay.
The name list will be reviewed on an annual basis.
In a related matter, the ETDA and its partners are continuing the campaign aimed at suppressing fraudulent and illegal online ads.
According to the ETDA, such ads resulted in damage valued at over 19 billion baht last year.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Lazada, Shopee and LINE Shopping have joined forces to utilise the application programming interface system to prevent the sale of unauthorised health products.
Surachoke Tangwiwat, secretary-general of the FDA, said it has also partnered with the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University and the Institute of Field Robotics at King Mongkut's University of Technology, Thonburi, to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) system capable of detecting advertisements for smuggled or unlabelled health products with high efficiency.
The project is also supported by the World Health Organization's Thailand office.
According to the Public Health Ministry, these initiatives mark a crucial step forward in strengthening consumer protection in the digital era.
These efforts integrate technology, policy and cross-sector collaboration to build public trust that health products purchased via e-commerce are safe and meet quality standards.
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