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The landscape of lawlessness online

Across the world, e-commerce has transformed how consumers access products and how businesses reach global markets. Online marketplaces and social media platforms now facilitate billions of transactions every day, cutting across borders and connecting buyers and sellers on an unprecedented scale.

However, this rapid expansion has also created significant vulnerabilities. Criminals and unscrupulous sellers exploit gaps in online oversight to offer illicit, unsafe, or non-compliant goods that would never be permitted in regulated offline environments. These include IP-infringing goods, unlicensed pharmaceuticals, counterfeit and adulterated cosmetics, banned pesticides, illicit alcohol and tobacco, unsafe children’s products, and even stolen merchandise. The result is a growing disconnect between long-standing consumer protection frameworks and the realities of digital commerce.

TRACIT’s report, The Landscape of Lawlessness Online, documents the breadth of illicit trade occurring on online platforms and examines the structural weaknesses that allow such activities to persist. The report provides concrete examples from major global marketplaces and social media platforms, illustrating how gaps in seller verification, product screening, and enforcement routinely expose consumers, businesses, and governments to harm.

Report structure
The first part of the report delineates the widening scope illegal activities online that put shoppers at risk. It details how e-commerce platforms have become channels for:

• Unauthorized sale of regulated products,
• Widespread resale of stolen goods,
• Circumvention of consumer health and safety regulations, and
• Violation of product safety laws and standards.

The second part examines why these failures persist. It evaluates the policies and practices of major online platforms by assessing three questions fundamental to any effective regulatory system:

1. Have platforms established clear and accessible rules for sellers?
2. Do platforms put in place operational measures to enforce those rules?
3. Do platforms impose meaningful penalties that deter repeat violations?​

Key findings

• Illegal and unsafe products are widely available on major online platforms, often in direct contravention of national regulatory frameworks.
• Existing platform policies focus primarily on intellectual property (IP) protection, while beyond IP, safeguards for other high-risk and illicit products remain limited or unenforced.
• The expanding role of platforms in designing and controlling online transactions challenges the application of safe-harbor protections, which were originally intended for neutral hosts in the early years of e-commerce. 
• Stronger, government-mandated due diligence requirements are needed to ensure that consumers are safe when purchasing goods online. 

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Critical recommendations

1. Governments need to check that online marketplaces effectively verify sellers' identities, licenses, and eligibility before regulated products are listed.
2. ​Implement mandatory pre-listing checks for regulated and high-risk goods: Platforms should be required to verify that products comply with national requirements— such as registrations, labeling standards, age or prescription requirements, and safety certifications—before allowing listings to go live.
3. Introduce continuous monitoring and effective enforcement mechanisms: Regulations should require proactive detection, timely takedowns, and credible “stay-down” systems to prevent re-listing of prohibited goods.
4. Mandate transparent record-keeping and traceability: Platforms should retain seller information, verification records, and transaction histories to support oversight and enforcement.
5. Require public transparency reporting: Platforms should regularly disclose the volume of illicit listings detected, enforcement actions taken, and measures adopted to improve compliance.​

MEDIA CENTER

• Brochure
• TRACIT Media Release​

Download the report