통신판매중개업자의 의미와 오픈마켓 사업자의 법적 지위에 관한 연구

The Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce, enacted in 2002, has played a critical role in fostering the growth of online transactions in Korea. However, despite over 20 years of implementation, confusion arising from ambiguous concepts continues to persist in the application of the law. This article aims to address interpretative challenges surrounding the basic concepts of e-commerce, such as distance selling, distance sellers, and distance sales intermediaries, which frequently arise in practice. Additionally, it seeks to harmoniously clarify the legal status, obligations, and responsibilities of open market operators, who account for a significant portion of Korea's online transactions. According to legal interpretation, distance selling involves the non-face-to-face solicitation of offers, the receipt of offers, and payment processing. A distance seller refers to a person engaged in distance selling or a person who conducts the distance selling business in accordance with a contract with the former. The former does not need to perform all aspects of distance selling but qualifies as long as they accept offers non-face-to-face. The latter is identified as someone acting on behalf of a distance seller to perform distance selling. A distance sales intermediary may be recognized in cases where an entity allows the use of a cybermall, solicits offers on behalf of others under its own name, acts as an agent to accept offers, or processes payments on behalf of others. Considering the terms and actual practices of open markets, it can be evaluated that open market operators perform all acts of distance sales intermediation as distance sellers.