Digitalization in Services: Barriers of Regulation

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is associated with a significant impact of modern technology in all areas of society. Digitalization of services leads to new types of services, its providers, ways of provision and consumption. The services are regulated by different branches of law. The authors investigated the civil law regulation. The goal was to explore government regulation of services in the digital economy. The authors tried to answer the following questions. Is the state able to regulate digitalization? Is this regulation necessary? Is it possible to do without it? What are the barriers to digitalization: state regulation, its absence or methods of regulation? What are the ways to overcome these barriers? How will the regulation of services develop? Methods. The consistent analysis of the civil law method of the regulation of the services, of the practice of changes in the regulation of the digital economy, of the essence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, has been carried out. As a result, the regulatory barriers for the development of digitalization of services have been identified, the proposals for overcoming the barriers have been made, and the development of regulation has been forecasted. Results. The barriers to the development of digitalization of services may be the backlog of state regulation, restrictive state regulation and imperative regulation of contractual relations. The suggestions for overcoming these barriers have been made. Russia uses the regulation of the digital economy, which is of a permissive and imperative nature, while the flexible regulation and its decentralization, the freedom of participants to introduce and use new technologies and products are necessary. During the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the state will significantly lag in regulation from rapidly developing relations, therefore the center of regulation will shift from the state to the participants. The large service providers can become such flexible regulatory centers.