[Guest Post] Danger Looming Large In Indonesia’s New E-commerce Law?

Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Remco Lupker, co-founder and ex-director of TokoBagus, a popular e-commerce site in Indonesia. He wrote about his opinion on the newly proposed and soon-to-launch government regulation on Indonesian e-commerce companies. Remco originally wrote this article on his blog on March 23rd, 2013, we have permission to repost this article.

This week the long awaited and probably feared Indonesian E-commerce law PP 82 became public and even though I’m no longer (directly) involved in any e-commerce business I thought I would take some time to read it. Mind you, this law is just the beginning and will be followed by 10 government regulations which will provide more details.

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Indonesian Government To Regulate Entrepreneurship And Technology Incubators

Indonesian government through its Ministry of Cooperations and SME recently announced that they’re soon to launch a regulation on entrepreneurship and technology incubator development for SMEs (yes, that includes tech startups). This regulation has been processed for quite some time in conjunction with ASIAN Economic Society program effective in 2015. Continue reading Indonesian Government To Regulate Entrepreneurship And Technology Incubators

Government’s (Un)Important Role in Asia’s Tech Scene

Early this December I got a chance to speak at APEC SME Summit and Open Web Asia 2012 held in Hainan, China. Besides myself, almost every tech blogger from each country in Asia Pacific attended, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, South Korea and also Hongkong. We had an interesting discussion about government’s role in the tech industry in each country. Continue reading Government’s (Un)Important Role in Asia’s Tech Scene

Government and the Industry in Disagreement Over Premium Content Regulation

Several content and service providers are in disagreement with the government regarding the revision of premium content regulation that the government is working on through the Ministry of Communications and Informatics and the Indonesia Telecommunications Regulatory Agency.

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4 Things that Indonesian People Need from Their Government

In light of the increasing activities in Indonesia’s technology industry, I think Indonesian government has to start supporting it in a more serious manner. Indonesian government needs to be ready on tackling problems which might emerge later on. In this past few weeks, I learned so much from the technology industry leaders overseas. I learned about the government’s role in order to grow innovation, nurture the industry, and to protect the companies as well as the consumer.

I come up with some crucial things waiting to be executed in order to support and protect Indonesian technology industry which is still in its infancy, fragile and in desperate need for support. Dear Mr. Tifatul Sembiring, our beloved Minister of Communication and Information, you might want to read this.

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Coming Soon: Consumer Protection Laws for E-Commerce Transactions

The Vice Minister of Trade (who is going to be shifted as Vice Minister of Finance), Mahendra Siregar, stated that the Ministry of Trade and the Ministry of Communication and Informatics will establish a regulation on consumer protection in online trading – or known as e-commerce. In a seminar in Jakarta, Siregar stated generally that the adoption of e-commerce is spreading fast, but the mechanism for fraud protection is not yet in place – the most common case is failure to pay when the items have been delivered.

According to Mahendra as cited by Okezone, the regulation is required to ensure legal protection especially since e-commerce involves international trade. “We can’t allow issues in export trade through e-commerce to affect country risk or brand image which may lead to the perception that Indonesian economy poses a high risk.”

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After the Standard of WiMAX Technology being Freed

As we know, the government – The Ministry of Communication and Information, and Board of Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation, finally become softer on the standard of technology used for WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network as one of wireless methods to access high speed internet. Quoted from detikInet, The Broadband Wireless Access (BWA—including WiMAX) in frequency 2.3 Ghz is free to choose the standard of used technology.

WiMAX which usually called as “Wi-Fi on steroids” in which the Internet network can be transmitted by wireless system with a wider coverage area. First, we need to trace the classification in WiMAX. The first is IEEE 802.16d that commonly called as Fixed WiMAX. The next is IEEE 802.16e that support mobility as known as Mobile WiMAX. In many parts of the world, Mobile Wimax is the most popular standard WiMAX used. If you want to read the further technical details, you may consider some sources, including its Wikipedia page.

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Government to Regulate Non-Bank Money Transfers

Watch out people, following the amazing growth of Indonesian e-commerce, the government is starting to tinker with the regulations. This time, the government want to rule the money transfers between non-banking institutions, services like PayPal, KasPay, Doku, and basically all carrier/telco companies, these guys would have to get government approval for doing such transactions.

Government officials said this regulation is made to protect banks and also consumer but I honestly don’t see the point for protecting the consumer. Banks would definitely appreciate this effort from government, and of course giving out licenses puts the government in a very strategic position in the whole problematic and troublesome e-commerce ecosystem.

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