E-commerce and online gaming websites are on rise in India. It seems everybody is in a rush to capatilise the e-commerce and online business boom that is presently happening in India. In this adrenaline rush both the e-commerce and online gaming website owners and their creators and managers fail to comply with Indian laws.

According to legal experts, this would give rise to a new level of litigation and legal proceedings against not only such websites and their owners but also against the developers and designers of such websites.

The crucial question is who has the responsibility to comply with the laws of various jurisdictions while launching an e-commerce or online gaming website? A majority of us would say that it is the owner who would be liable and prosecuted for legal wrongs. This is also true to a great extent as the primary liability for meeting with the legal obligations and requirements vests with the website owner.

However, this is not entirely correct in the online environment where businesses and ventures are floated and managed in a very different way than their traditional counterparts. In cases of e-commerce and online gaming websites, laws of different jurisdictions are involved and this makes the website owner liable under laws of different jurisdictions. This also makes the website creator and manager liable for laws under different jurisdictions in many cases.

According to New Delhi based ICT law firm Perry4Law, there are many legal risks for websites companies developing e-commerce and online gaming websites in India. These website developers must be very cautions while drafting and launching e-commerce and online gaming websites in various jurisdictions, including India, opines Perry4Law.

This seems to be logical as well especially when there are reports that websites and entrepreneurs in the fields of m-health, online poker, online gaming, Bitcoins websites, online pharmacies, cloud computing, etc are not complying with the laws of India and other jurisdictions. There are many legal formalities that are required to be complied with by e-commerce websites of India that they are not doing as on date.

It would be wrong to presume that only the website owner would be liable to be prosecuted in these circumstances. The website developers and managers are equally liable to be prosecuted. Further, the websites owners must also be very cautions as to whom they are hiring for designing and launching of their online business websites as an unprofessional and inexperienced website developer may put them on risk of being prosecuted.