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	REPLY OF THE STATE ADMINISTRATION FOR INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE REGARDING THE REGISTRATION OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCIAL WEBSITES

	(No.92 [2002] of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce promulgated on April 22, 2002)


SUBJECT : ELECTRONIC COMMERCIAL WEBSITES
ISSUING DEPARTMENT : STATE ADMINISTRATION FOR INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
ISSUE DATE : 04/22/2002
IMPLEMENT DATE : 04/22/2002
LENGTH : 455 words
TEXT :

Request for Instructions on Recognition of the Identity of Electronic Commerce Websites (No.22 [2002] of the Administration for Industry and Commerce of Beijing Municipality) from your administration has been received. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) has paid high attention to this issue and held several meetings for deliberation. Your administration takes the lead in exploring the administration of electronic commerce (e-commerce) websites and has accumulated some experiences, and such initiative spirit and the experiences obtained are highly commendable. At the present time, some lawbreakers use websites to make falsified advertisement, promote fake and poor quality commodities, carry out unfair competition, and damage the legitimate rights and interests of the consumers by standard contracts, etc. Such problems are more and more notable, and the administrative departments of industry and commerce shall strengthen the regulation of e-commerce websites within their statutory duties, however, the contents, modes, and methods of regulation shall be further explored, and your administration is expected to gain more experiences in this field.

The registering of e-commerce websites as enterprises branches goes beyond the limit of authorities of the administrative departments of industry and commerce, and is inconformity with the requirements on enterprise branches set forth in the provisions on the administration of enterprise registration. The Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services (Order No.292 of the State Council) provide definite division of duties of the relevant departments. The Ministry of Information Industry and the administrative bodies of telecommunications at the provincial level shall make the examination and approval of the business websites engaging in internet information services and issue the business permits thereto, and shall put on record the non-business websites and supervise their internet information services according to law until those websites are closed. The major duties of the administrative departments of industry and commerce are making registration of those applying for engaging in the business internet information services after those applicants have obtained the business permits, establish their qualification for access as market subjects, and supervise and administer the contents of their internet information according to law within the scope of their duties. Hence we can see that the departments in charge of website registration shall be the Ministry of Information Industry and the administrative departments of telecommunications at the provincial level, the objects of registration by the administrative departments of industry and commerce shall be the subjects of market operations, namely the operators of the websites, but not the websites themselves. In the meanwhile, websites are only the tools and means by which the enterprises engage in business activities, and they are not qualified as branches, therefore, registering of websites themselves as enterprise branches is inconformity with the existing provisions on the administration of enterprise registration.