Authorities Remove More Than 20,000 Suspicious Links from Marketplace

TheIndonesia.id - Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade has revealed that it removed 25,653 suspicious links from marketplace in the country in 2022.

As reported by Antara on Thursday, December 29, the Ministry said it had been previously monitoring 37,488 links on marketplace for not complying with national regulation on trade through electronic system (PMSE), and among some of the products were cooking oil, cough syrup, dry shampoo, and IMEI (international mobile equipment identity) blacklist removal.

In the end, the Ministry worked with Indonesian E-Commerce Association (idEA) to take down 25,653 links to products sold on marketplace.

Furthermore, legal monitoring was also carried out to 147 PMSE businesses, including 22 marketplaces, 121 online retails, two price comparison websites, and two classified ads. Authorities found that 31 of them failed to comply with regulations and were imposed with administrative penalty.

The Ministry also noted that the rampant entry of illegal cellphones to Indonesia has created an opportunity for individuals to offer service to unblock IMEI blacklist. It found that there were at least 76 links to the service.

"PMSE supervision aims to protect consumers and ensure PMSE governance runs accordingly in order to reduce the number of businesses that do not comply with laws and regulations as well as to lessen the circulation of illegal goods," director general of consumer protection and trade order (PTKN) at the Ministry of Trade, Veri Anggrijono, explained.

"[Legal action will be taken against violations on the trade of] goods and services marketed directly or through electronic systems … based on applicable provisions," he added.