Siri 2.0—Conversational Commerce of Social Bots and the New Law of Obligations of Data: Explorations for the Benefit of Consumer Protection

Abstract

The possibilities and reach of social networks are increasing, designs are becoming more diverse, and ideas more visionary. Most recently, the former company “Facebook” announced the creation of a metaverse. With these technical possibilities, however, the danger of fraudsters is also growing. Using social bots, consumers are increasingly influenced on such platforms and business transactions are brought about through communication, i.e., conversational commerce. Minors or the elderly are particularly susceptible. This technical development is accompanied by a legal one: it is permitted by the Digital Services Directive and the Sale of Goods Directive to demand the provision of data as consideration for the sale of digital products. This raises legal problems at the level of the law of obligations and data protection law, whose regulations are intended to protect the aforementioned groups of individuals. This protection becomes even more important the more gullible consumers are influenced by communicative bots. We show that there is a lack of knowledge about what value objective data can have in business transactions. The sufficient transparency of objective data value can maintain legal protection, especially of vulnerable groups, and ensure the purpose of the laws.