Consumer Protection from Misleading Online Advertisements “An Analytical Study in UAE Law”

Abstract

This paper tackles false advertisement on the internet in the United Arab Emirates, due to the significance of advertisement that involves deception, lies, that may effect goods, services and consumers and fair competition. As such online contracting based on deception may undermine the free will of the related parties, the consumer would most possibly fall victim to such false advertisements. The issue of sufficient legislative protection of consumers form deceptive online trading false advertisements. The research adopts a descriptive analytical methodology, through handling the issues that may face the consumers from deceptive false advertisements. Analysing the provisions of related laws and jurists' jurisprudence, to identify the possible legal, judicial gaps that may appear within the provisions and jurisdiction. In order to provide real and enough protection for consumers from false online advertisements. The UAE legislator provided certain protective scattered provisions within various related legislations such as the Federal Consumer Protection Act No. 15 of 2020 and Federal Commercial Deception No. 19 of 2016 which is such a progressive step forward towards futuristic legislative solutions to protect consumers during online trading from false deceptive advertisements and that may take into consideration the various online means of advertisement through social media or otherwise (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc …) which, influencers celebrities preform without licence while taking into hand the international rules that governs online borderless virtual web.