Investigating the Legal Aspects of the Emergence of Deceptive Competition in E-Commerce and Its Enforcement Guarantees

With the expansion of e-commerce in Iran, a new competitive environment has been formed among digital businesses in which unfair and deceptive behaviors, as emerging challenges, threaten the health of the market and consumer rights. Deceptive competition in this context includes a range of deceptive actions such as misleading advertising, damaging competitors' brands, unfair exploitation of user data, and deceptive pricing, which often occur in a legal vacuum and weak institutional supervision. The purpose of this research is to examine the legal, institutional, and executive dimensions of deceptive competition in Iranian e-commerce and to provide an analytical framework for recognizing and combating them. The research method is descriptive-analytical and uses library resources, legal documents, comparative studies, and case analysis of the behavior of Iranian platforms. The research findings show that the existing laws in Iran are mainly designed for traditional markets and have shown their inefficiency in the face of the complexities of the digital space. Also, executive institutions such as the FATA Police, the E-Commerce Development Center, and the Competition Council, despite their key roles, lack the coordination and technical tools necessary to effectively deal with unfair competition. Analysis of the behavior of Iranian platforms also showed that some companies, using complex algorithms and big data, engage in behaviors that are examples of unhealthy competition. As a result, dealing with unfair competition in Iranian e-commerce requires amending laws, strengthening regulatory institutions, developing technical infrastructure, and promoting a culture of healthy competition.