E-commerce marketing · Industry brief

Malaysia's Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living published a regulatory impact assessment in October 2025 identifying gaps in the country's e-commerce framework, including fragmented oversight, undefined platform intermediary obligations, and inadequate dispute resolution mechanisms. The government has proposed significant reforms including direct platform due diligence and duty-of-care requirements, establishment of a dedicated e-commerce regulator, extraterritorial application to foreign platforms, and creation of a centralized online dispute resolution system. If implemented, these proposals would shift regulation toward direct platform accountability, requiring e-commerce intermediaries to assume active monitoring roles, maintain human oversight of AI systems, verify seller identities, and comply with enhanced local presence requirements. (Source: Baker & McKenzie legal update citing Malaysia's MDTCL Report, October 2025)

Podean announced the acquisition of Social Commerce Club, a TikTok Shop Platinum Partner, marking Podean's sixth acquisition in nine months as the company expands its e-commerce marketing capabilities. The deal adds 70 specialists and integrates SCC's "Halo" platform with Podean's "Purvey.AI" system to provide AI-driven cross-channel sales insights. Following the acquisition, Podean will operate with 465 team members across 21 countries, managing over $600 million in annual media spend across 110+ marketplaces including Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart, and Mercado Libre.

On June 16, 2026, the Northern District of Illinois ruled in Baker v. Index Exchange Inc. that the DOJ's Bulk Sensitive Data (BSD) rule, enacted in April 2025, can serve as a predicate "tortious act" under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act's crime-tort exception, effectively nullifying the one-party consent defense. Index Exchange, a Canadian supply-side advertising platform (SSP), was sued by John Baker for allegedly intercepting his communications and transmitting sensitive personal data to a Chinese-owned e-commerce platform in violation of the BSD rule, which prohibits U.S. entities from transferring sensitive data to countries of concern including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. The court denied Index Exchange's motion to dismiss, finding that BSD violations constitute tort actions triggering the crime-tort exception. This ruling opens significant new litigation risk for SSPs, demand-side advertising platforms, and digital advertisers doing business with companies in covered countries, as private plaintiffs can now assert BSD violations to pierce ECPA's consent defenses—a tactic gaining momentum in privacy litigation circles. The court did not rule on factual disputes regarding whether the recipient platform was actually a covered person under the BSD rule.