A Study of Regulating Internet Escrow Services in Electronic Commerce

전자상거래상의 인터넷 에스크로 서비스의 규제에 관한 연구

As with the fast spread of internet uses in recent years, electronic commerce has evolved. The proliferation of electronic commerce has increased diverse forms of fraud cases since internet helps intended criminals remain anonymous. In absence of effective tools to warrant the reliability of parties offering products or services through electronic commerce, consumers have to absorb damages unfairly. Internet escrow service has been considered to be an option to establish reliability between buyers and sellers and to protect consumers from possible fraud cases. However, like other industries, fraudulent escrow services have appeared in internet. This study has been intended to analyze fraudulent internet escrow services and to propose an effective regulatory system of internet escrow services. To do that, this study benchmarked the regulation of the State of California, primarily focusing on the formation of escrow company, regulation of escrow business, and remedies for wrongdoing, so Korea can consider the adoption of similar systems.