The rapid development of e-commerce has influenced the way consumers transact, offering convenience and speed in digital shopping. However, this phenomenon also brings new challenges in terms of consumer protection, particularly in relation to psychology-based marketing techniques that can exploit consumers' emotional states. This research aims to examine whether psychological marketing strategies, such as fear of missing out (FOMO), social proof, and urgency bias, can be categorized as a form of abuse of circumstances in e-commerce transactions in Indonesia. Using a civil law approach, this study analyzes whether marketing techniques that manipulate consumer decisions can violate the principle of free will and harm consumers. The results show that techniques such as fake countdowns and non-factual scarcity claims can create emotional distress that interferes with consumers' freedom to make rational decisions. Therefore, stricter regulations and transparency in digital marketing are needed to protect consumers from unethical practices. This research also recommends regulatory updates and increased digital literacy for consumers to raise awareness of manipulative marketing techniques. Practically, the findings contribute to the development of consumer protection policies and can serve as a basis for regulators to create regulations that are more responsive to the evolving dynamics of digital marketing.
Hutagalung et al. (Thu,) studied this question.