In September 2025, Moscow Digital School recorded a lecture “Jurisdictional Aspects of E-Commerce.” As part of the event, Maria Girich, Researcher at the Gaidar Institute's International Best Practices Analysis Department, spoke about which country's court should be approached if a user's rights are violated on e-commerce platforms.
To do this, the activities of the seller or platform in the country are assessed. For example, in the US, the concept of “minimum contacts” is applied. Thus, when assessing whether a US court can hear a plaintiff's complaint in a cross-border dispute, the possibility of delivering goods to the US, placing an order from the US, distributing advertising to US consumers by a foreign seller, as well as actively maintaining a website that is accessible in the US (whether it is possible to create an account, pay, etc.) are taken into account. If these criteria are met, the US court becomes competent to hear cross-border disputes. The EU has largely similar criteria. In addition, the EU Court of Justice highlights other indicators such as the use of the language or currency of the relevant country, the use of that country's domain name, etc.
Russia has also established special criteria for determining jurisdiction over Internet disputes. For example, Russian courts have the right to hear cases concerning the protection of the rights of personal data subjects or cases concerning the termination of search engine operators' provision of links allowing access to information on the Internet, if the plaintiff is a resident of Russia.