Invading consumers' rights and interests, paid deletions have become gray -black industry chain

The Shushan Branch of the Public Security Bureau of Hefei City, Anhui Province recently cracked a case of violating the citizenship information, arrested 12 criminal suspects, and seized tens of thousands of citizenship information, and the amount involved in the case reached more than 200,000 yuan.

This is a typical case of compensation for the illegal profit.

In recent years, public security organs in Tianjin, Zhejiang, Anhui and other places have cracked a lot of deletion of differential review cases, and the amount involved in the case is mostly millions of yuan. Moreover, criminal gangs often involve many places, and some cases even involve more than 10 provinces.

In 2008, paid deletion of differential reviews has appeared. Although the relevant departments have continued to upgrade supervision measures, this phenomenon has not been cured, and the gray -black industry chain has been formed.

Zhu Xiaojuan, an associate professor of the School of Civil and Commerce and Economics of China University of Political Science and Law and the Deputy Secretary -General of the Chinese Law Society of Law Society, said in an interview with a reporter that in essence, evaluation is a credit mechanism, which is essential for network operators. Because of this, paid deletion of differential reviews has a great market demand, which is also an important reason why the problem is difficult to cure.

"Considering the long -term, complexity, and arduousness of the renovation and deletion of differential evaluation work, it is necessary to establish and implement a long -term mechanism, including the enforcement department to increase law enforcement supervision, and increase the governance of network platforms. At the same time, promote the network as soon as possible, promote the network as soon as possible Data docking between the platform and the regulatory authorities to achieve early warning and supervision of abnormal data. "Zhu Xiaojuan said.

The amount involved is millions of yuan involved in multiple provinces

The case of infringing citizen's information cracked by the Shushan Branch spent about 3 months.

In December 2021, the Shushan Branch received an alarm from the masses, saying that someone posted a differential user information on the Internet corporate platform at a high price, and then induced such users to delete different review information by "benefits" to get huge profits to make huge profits. Essence After investigation by the police, a technology company in Henan was behind the scenes of all these. On February 24 this year, the task force closed at the same time in Henan, Anhui and other places.

The amount involved is millions of yuan, involved in multiple provinces and gangs, ... such cases with differential reviews have been uncommon in recent years.

For example, in September 2020, the Hebei Branch of the Tianjin Public Security Bureau cracked a criminal case that engaged in illegal business activities in the form of an "water army" in the form of a "water army". It is understood that the criminal gang made a profit of nearly 3 million yuan through paid deletion of the network difference, involving more than 10 provinces.

In the cases of paid deletion of differential reviews in recent years, the gang has become the most common way, and has formed a clear gray -black industry chain with a clear division of labor. In this industry chain, there are online public relations companies with "soliciting business", personal agencies who "introduce business", and "responsible for implementation" postposters.

The reporter searched online and found that there are still some self -proclaimed "professional deleting evaluation companies" advertisements saying that they can help delete different reviews. After adding a contact information of several companies, some "professional deletion of evaluation companies" staff said that they can help delete the bad reviews within a month. According to different platforms, the charges ranged from hundreds to thousands of yuan. However, for the way of deleting differential evaluations, these "professional deletion of evaluation companies" will not be informed, but they will definitely be effective.

Yao Zhiwei, a professor at the Law School of Guangdong University of Finance and Economics, pointed out that there are two main ways to delete differences: one is that the criminal gang actively contacted a merchant with bad reviews, charged deletion of differential reviews, and purchased information about the reviewing consumers, and received contact. Later induced the paid deletion of the difference, and then earn a considerable price difference; the other is that the criminal gang requires the website to delete the post through massive complaints and forged lawyers' letters. Avoid trouble to delete posts.

Invading consumer rights and disrupting market order

Pay deletion of differential reviews not only damage the rights and interests of consumers, disrupt the market order, but also bring more management costs to the market regulatory authorities.

"In online consumption, products and services are displayed in pictures and videos. Browsing and analyzing comments are an important way for them to understand goods and services. Once the bad reviews are deleted, consumers have no important reference and cannot be unable to cannot. Making the most in line with your true meaning of judgment and choice, the right to know and choice will be damaged. "Zhu Xiaojuan said.

Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, also believes that paid deletion of differential reviews harms online credit and damages consumers' right to know and free choice. The bad reviews are displayed, the ordering and deletion of the difference are provided to consumers with wrong information, and the choice based on this information also violates consumer consumption desires. "

Not only that, paid deletion of differential reviews also disrupted the market order of fair competition and increased the supervision cost of the regulatory authorities.

In Zhu Xiaojuan's view, paid deletion of differential reviews will affect merchants with similar products and services on the Internet platform, reduce their opportunities for products and services, belong to unfair competition, disrupt market order, and increase regulatory costs.

In 2013, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued the "Explanation on the Application of Laws for the use of information networks to implement slanderous cases such as defamation", and identified the crime of illegal business crimes of the network with severe networks with serious circumstances. Since then, the state regulatory authorities have become stricter to the management of paid online deletion of the Internet.

In recent years, the State Cyber ​​Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments have carried out special actions for "paid deletion posts" and clearly established and implemented a long -term mechanism.

Increase the protection of consumers' personal information for compensation for deletion of differential reviews, my country ’s law has clearly prohibited and stipulated corresponding penalties.

The e -commerce law stipulates that the operator of the e -commerce platform shall not delete consumers' evaluation of goods or services provided by their platforms. At the same time, the law stipulates that the operator of the e -commerce platform has the behavior of "deleting consumer evaluation without authorization", which is ordered by the market supervision and management department to make corrections within a time limit. Fines of more than 500,000 yuan or less.

Yao Zhiwei said that paid deletion of differential reviews not only violated consumers' right to know, but also disrupted the normal operating order. Those with severe circumstances may be suspected of illegal operational crimes and illegal invasion of computer information system crimes.

In addition to providing regulations on e -commerce platform operators, my country's personal information protection laws such as "harassing consumer deletion" also have prohibited provisions.

"The most effective way for the governance of compensation to delete differential evaluations is to increase the protection of consumers' personal information. As long as these 'deletions company' can not contact consumers, this problem can be largely obtained to a large extent Solution. "Yao Zhiwei said.

Zhu Xiaojuan believes that solving the problem of deletion of differential reviews cannot be dependent on the supervision of the network platform itself. "The network platform itself is a business subject, and there is also a profit -seeking side. Actively affect the online platform's active supervision of the abnormal behavior of operators in the platform. "

Zhu Xiaojuan suggested to find solutions at the technical level to promote the data docking of the regulatory system of network platforms and market supervision platforms. Praise the increasing data such as instant increases, and then promote the implementation of relevant laws and regulations.

Source: Rule of Law Daily Title: Paid Deletion Evaluation has formed a gray -black industry chain expert suggestion that the data docking system supervision abnormal data has been formed

Reporter: Pu Xiaolei

Responsible editor: Qin Daixin

School pair: Guo Yanhui

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