China Issues Measures on Supervision and Administration of Live-streaming E-commerce For Opinions
Published 23 June 2025
Fei Dang
On June 10, 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) published a draft of the Measures for Supervision and Administration of Livestreaming E-commerce (the Draft) on its website for public opinions, which will end on July 10, 2025.
The Draft contains 57 provisions in seven chapters. In the General Principle (Chapter 1) part, it provides some important concepts used in the Draft. For instance, “live streaming e-commerce” is defined as “the business activity of selling goods or providing services in the form of live video, live audio, or a combination of multiple live streams through Internet sites, applications, and so on. Where laws and regulations provide for the sale of goods or provision of services otherwise, their provisions shall apply.” “Live streaming room operators, refers to natural persons, legal persons, and other organizations that register an account on the live streaming e-commerce platform or open a live streaming room to engage in live streaming e-commerce activities through self-built websites and other network services.”
For “live streaming e-commerce platform operators,” which is provided in Chapter 2, it is defined as “the legal person or unincorporated organization in live e-commerce activities to provide network premises, transaction aggregation, information dissemination, commodity browsing, order generation, online payment, and other services for the two or more parties to carry out transactions independently.” The said Chapter provides that the live streaming e-commerce platform operators shall “establish sound mechanisms and measures for account and function registration and cancellation, regulate trading behavior, guarantee quality of goods and services, protect consumer rights and interests, protect personal information, manage network and data security, manage live marketer service organizations and live marketers, etc.” Other requirements on the live streaming e-commerce platform operators include, but not limited to, signing agreement with the live streaming room operators and the live streaming marketing personnel service organization; establishing a system for disposing of illegal and irregular behaviors within the platform; setting up a dynamic verification mechanism for the real identity of the live streaming marketing personnel; regularly reporting information about the live streaming room operators, the live streaming marketing personnel, and the operators within the platform to the market regulation department; establishing systems of training, risk identification model, blacklist, abnormal operator control, complaint and reporting, etc.
For the live streaming room operators (Chapter 3), it shall perform obligations such as disclosing the operator's relevant identity information, checking and verifying the information of live streaming marketing personnel and retaining the relevant records to be checked, displaying the price and other related information of goods or services in a prominent way on the live page, forbidding false or misleading commercial propaganda and significantly identifying on the live streaming page the use of character images and videos engaged in live marketing activities that are generated by artificial intelligence and other technologies.
The Chapter 4 regulates the live streaming marketing personnel and the service institutions that provide planning, operation, brokerage, and training for the former. The Draft requires the said service institutions to establish a disposal system for illegal and unruly behavior of live streaming marketing personnel, a strictly regulated live streaming commodity selection mechanism, a strict pre-compliance audit mechanism, a standardized live streaming error correction mechanism. On the other hand, the Draft also forbids the live streaming marketing personnel to publish false or misleading information to deceive or mislead consumers, to damage competitors' business reputation and product reputation, and so on.
For supervision and management (Chapter 5), the market regulation departments above the county level shall supervise and manage the violations of the live streaming marketing personnel and their service institution within the jurisdiction thereof, and it shall also coordinate and cooperate with the cyberspace department in the daily management and enforcement of live streaming e-commerce. The Draft also provides measures that could be adopted by the market regulation department while investigating violations, which include, but are not limited to, on-site checks; accessing and copying relevant information related to the suspected violation; collecting, accessing, and copying electronic data related to the suspected violation; sample inspection or test analysis of problematic goods; and interviewing suspected operators, personnel, service institutions, and so on.
For liabilities (Chapter 6), the Draft specifies various violations in detail, as well as legal grounds for their punishment. For instance, “In case of publishing illegal information during live streaming e-commerce activities, it shall be punished by the relevant competent authorities in accordance with the PRC Cyberspace Security Law, the Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services, and other laws and regulations; and if a crime is committed, it shall be liable for criminal responsibility in accordance with law.”
In recent years, China's live streaming e-commerce industry has been developing rapidly, and live streaming e-commerce has become more and more people's way of shopping, but false marketing, counterfeiting, and other violations have also emerged. The issuance of the Draft defines the legal obligations of the five categories of subjects (i.e., the live streaming e-commerce, the live streaming room operators, the live streaming marketing personnel, etc.) for the first time, which helps to fill the regulatory gap in the relevant areas.
The Draft also puts forward very specific legal requirements for the live streaming room operators, the live streaming marketing personnel, the live streaming marketing personnel service institutions, etc., including but not limited to the live streaming room operators to establish and improve the system of reviewing the release of information on goods or services, to disclose information, to verify identity, etc., and to refrain from making false or misleading commercial advertisements; the live streaming marketing personnel service institutions to strengthen the management of their live streaming marketing personnel, to establish a sound training, live streaming product selection, live streaming error correction and other systems. Such provisions will be helpful to reduce false propaganda, counterfeiting, and other chaotic phenomena and protect consumers’ right to know and right to choose.
It is also worth mentioning that the Draft also closely follows the new trends in the development of the e-commerce industry and incorporates the “digital person” into its regulatory object. The use of new technologies such as AI technology to generate images of people and video for live streaming marketing shall be applied to the Draft. Therefore, the issuance of the Draft will have a positive impact on the health development of the live streaming e-commerce industry.
The Draft contains 57 provisions in seven chapters. In the General Principle (Chapter 1) part, it provides some important concepts used in the Draft. For instance, “live streaming e-commerce” is defined as “the business activity of selling goods or providing services in the form of live video, live audio, or a combination of multiple live streams through Internet sites, applications, and so on. Where laws and regulations provide for the sale of goods or provision of services otherwise, their provisions shall apply.” “Live streaming room operators, refers to natural persons, legal persons, and other organizations that register an account on the live streaming e-commerce platform or open a live streaming room to engage in live streaming e-commerce activities through self-built websites and other network services.”
For “live streaming e-commerce platform operators,” which is provided in Chapter 2, it is defined as “the legal person or unincorporated organization in live e-commerce activities to provide network premises, transaction aggregation, information dissemination, commodity browsing, order generation, online payment, and other services for the two or more parties to carry out transactions independently.” The said Chapter provides that the live streaming e-commerce platform operators shall “establish sound mechanisms and measures for account and function registration and cancellation, regulate trading behavior, guarantee quality of goods and services, protect consumer rights and interests, protect personal information, manage network and data security, manage live marketer service organizations and live marketers, etc.” Other requirements on the live streaming e-commerce platform operators include, but not limited to, signing agreement with the live streaming room operators and the live streaming marketing personnel service organization; establishing a system for disposing of illegal and irregular behaviors within the platform; setting up a dynamic verification mechanism for the real identity of the live streaming marketing personnel; regularly reporting information about the live streaming room operators, the live streaming marketing personnel, and the operators within the platform to the market regulation department; establishing systems of training, risk identification model, blacklist, abnormal operator control, complaint and reporting, etc.
For the live streaming room operators (Chapter 3), it shall perform obligations such as disclosing the operator's relevant identity information, checking and verifying the information of live streaming marketing personnel and retaining the relevant records to be checked, displaying the price and other related information of goods or services in a prominent way on the live page, forbidding false or misleading commercial propaganda and significantly identifying on the live streaming page the use of character images and videos engaged in live marketing activities that are generated by artificial intelligence and other technologies.
The Chapter 4 regulates the live streaming marketing personnel and the service institutions that provide planning, operation, brokerage, and training for the former. The Draft requires the said service institutions to establish a disposal system for illegal and unruly behavior of live streaming marketing personnel, a strictly regulated live streaming commodity selection mechanism, a strict pre-compliance audit mechanism, a standardized live streaming error correction mechanism. On the other hand, the Draft also forbids the live streaming marketing personnel to publish false or misleading information to deceive or mislead consumers, to damage competitors' business reputation and product reputation, and so on.
For supervision and management (Chapter 5), the market regulation departments above the county level shall supervise and manage the violations of the live streaming marketing personnel and their service institution within the jurisdiction thereof, and it shall also coordinate and cooperate with the cyberspace department in the daily management and enforcement of live streaming e-commerce. The Draft also provides measures that could be adopted by the market regulation department while investigating violations, which include, but are not limited to, on-site checks; accessing and copying relevant information related to the suspected violation; collecting, accessing, and copying electronic data related to the suspected violation; sample inspection or test analysis of problematic goods; and interviewing suspected operators, personnel, service institutions, and so on.
For liabilities (Chapter 6), the Draft specifies various violations in detail, as well as legal grounds for their punishment. For instance, “In case of publishing illegal information during live streaming e-commerce activities, it shall be punished by the relevant competent authorities in accordance with the PRC Cyberspace Security Law, the Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services, and other laws and regulations; and if a crime is committed, it shall be liable for criminal responsibility in accordance with law.”
In recent years, China's live streaming e-commerce industry has been developing rapidly, and live streaming e-commerce has become more and more people's way of shopping, but false marketing, counterfeiting, and other violations have also emerged. The issuance of the Draft defines the legal obligations of the five categories of subjects (i.e., the live streaming e-commerce, the live streaming room operators, the live streaming marketing personnel, etc.) for the first time, which helps to fill the regulatory gap in the relevant areas.
The Draft also puts forward very specific legal requirements for the live streaming room operators, the live streaming marketing personnel, the live streaming marketing personnel service institutions, etc., including but not limited to the live streaming room operators to establish and improve the system of reviewing the release of information on goods or services, to disclose information, to verify identity, etc., and to refrain from making false or misleading commercial advertisements; the live streaming marketing personnel service institutions to strengthen the management of their live streaming marketing personnel, to establish a sound training, live streaming product selection, live streaming error correction and other systems. Such provisions will be helpful to reduce false propaganda, counterfeiting, and other chaotic phenomena and protect consumers’ right to know and right to choose.
It is also worth mentioning that the Draft also closely follows the new trends in the development of the e-commerce industry and incorporates the “digital person” into its regulatory object. The use of new technologies such as AI technology to generate images of people and video for live streaming marketing shall be applied to the Draft. Therefore, the issuance of the Draft will have a positive impact on the health development of the live streaming e-commerce industry.