Information product in the form of an online course: gaps in civil law regulation as a "barrier" for criminal law assessment

The relevance of the research is determined by the uncertainty of the legal status of the phenomenon of "online courses" within the legal system of the Russian Federation, which, in the absence of regulatory requirements for the quality and content of such products, creates conditions for the formally legal implementation of unfair business practices and the extraction of profit from the dissemination of poor-quality information. Moreover, the negative consequences of such activities are not limited to the risk of causing property damage to consumers, as the application of knowledge obtained from poor-quality online courses in certain areas can pose a threat to the life and health of an indefinite circle of individuals. These circumstances give the entrepreneurial activity of selling online courses on the Internet a contradictory and socially dangerous character, which necessitates a comprehensive scientific understanding of it and the development of justified proposals for improving legal regulation. The subject of the research is the peculiarities of the contractual structure of a public offer used in the sale of online courses, and the legal mechanisms of regulating the relationships regarding access to informational materials that are conditioned by it. The basis of the research is a formal-legal method used to analyze the contractual structure of the public offer and the related legal mechanisms of regulation and evaluation of the implementation of online courses, combined with a systemic-structural approach that allows for the examination of these legal relationships in an intersectoral context. The main conclusion of the research is the statement that criminal law counteraction to unfair business practices in the field of online course sales cannot be carried out in isolation from civil law regulation, as it is civil law that forms the objective criteria for quality and acceptable behavior. It has been established that the content of online courses is a necessary criterion for their quality and safety, but due to the dual legal nature of their circulation and the use of the "provision of access to information" structure, it is excluded from legally significant assessment. As a result, the content of online courses is not taken into account either in consumer protection or in the criminal law qualification of fraud and the provision of services that do not meet safety requirements. Based on the results of the research, proposals have been formulated for improving the legal regulation of online courses, aimed at eliminating identified gaps and contributing to effective criminal law counteraction to unfair practices.