Government policy, regulations, and legal developments affecting global commerce and retail.
South Korea’s privacy regulator has fined Coupang 624.7 billion won (about USD 409 million), the largest data-breach penalty in the country’s history, over a leak tied to roughly 37.5 million accounts. The New York-listed retailer says it will challenge the ruling as the case fuels a wider US-Korea dispute.
State bans and disclosure laws, not a federal rule, are likely to set the operative limits on personalized algorithmic pricing, pushing national retailers toward a uniform non-personalized standard before the 2026 holiday season.
Signals point to the EU tabling a Digital Fairness Act in Q4 2026 that puts dark patterns, drip pricing and personalized pricing in retail scope. The impact assessment due in Q2 2026 is the near-term tell.
A concrete 2026 breakdown of the DSA duties that bind online marketplaces: trader traceability (KYC), notice-and-action, illegal-content takedowns, transparency reporting, the VLOP threshold, and what non-compliance actually costs.
By 2026 a retailer selling nationwide is no longer governed by one privacy rule but by roughly twenty overlapping state statutes, each with its own thresholds, consumer rights, and enforcement teeth. Here is what actually applies and what to fix first.
The FTC click-to-cancel rule forces subscription retailers to make canceling as easy as signing up. Here is what changes in checkout, consent, and billing for 2026.