Since 1991, on March 15 every year, CCTV, China Consumer Daily, China Industry and Commerce Times and China Consumer Association have jointly held the International Consumer Rights Day "Consumer Friends Special Evening", that is, "March 15 Evening", aiming to expose hot events and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
The reporter learned that this year's 3.15 evening party with the theme of "fairness, integrity, and safe consumption", will also innovate the establishment of "3.15 product safety laboratory" and "3.15 information security laboratory", collect consumer complaints, summarize and analyze complaint samples, and regularly release the "information security index" through the laboratory to promote the progress of the industry.
With the continuous development of technology, the information and communication industry has gradually integrated into people's lives and become an indispensable infrastructure. The market order and laws and regulations of the ICT industry are also constantly improving in development. Looking back at the problems exposed in the "3.15 Evening Party", it is not difficult to see the development trajectory of the information and communication industry.
In 1994, the evening exposed telephone services around the commercial and telecommunications industries.
In 2012, the party focused on cases that violated business ethics, violated market conscience and endangered the order of the market economy, exposing China Telecom's spam SMS operations and user personal information security issues.
In 2013, the party exposed the discrimination of Apple's after-sales policy in China.
The 2015 gala demonstrated how hackers used fake WiFi to steal various privacy data such as mobile phone systems, brand models, selfie photos, and email account passwords from the audience at the party.
In 2016, the party successively reported on the infringement of consumer rights and interests and unfair competition in online ordering, second-hand car online trading, mobile application software, customized dentures, and online credit evaluation.
In 2018, the party reported that the deposit of the "cool ride" of shared bicycles could not be refunded, which damaged the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
On March 15 this year, will the March 15 party still expose the chaos in the information and communication industry? The reporter made the following conjectures.
Big data "kills"
Big data technology was originally innocent, but "big data killing" touched the bottom line of business. In recent years, some operators have set up algorithm models that induce users to indulge and over-consume, collect user information through big data, carry out targeted marketing according to customer preferences, and carry out differential pricing for different groups, implementing "price discrimination".
Recently, the Beijing Consumers Association released the results of the survey on the "killing" problem of Internet consumption big data, showing that of the 32 simulated consumption experience samples conducted on 16 platforms, 14 samples of new and old accounts were inconsistent in price. Among them, most of the samples are due to different discounts or preferential treatment, resulting in different final transaction prices, but the experience samples of individual online travel and takeaway platforms show that new and old users buy the same goods (services) at the same time with different prices, which is suspected of infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
In order to standardize internet information service algorithm recommendation activities, safeguard national security and the social public interest, and protect the lawful rights and interests of citizens, legal persons, and other organizations, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly issued the Provisions on the Administration of Internet Information Service Algorithm Recommendation, which came into effect on March 1.
Mobile APP related chaos
Mobile APP has recently been the focus of rectification by relevant departments. On the eve of the "3.15" International Consumer Rights Day, in order to consolidate the effectiveness of governance and create a good environment for jointly safeguarding consumer rights and interests, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also carried out a "review" of APP infringement on the rights and interests of users, organized third-party testing agencies to conduct key tests on memory cleaning and mobile phone optimization APP that users reflected more problems in the early stage, and conducted spot tests on app that found problems last year, and found that a total of 14 APP still had problems, including 360 mobile phone guard, An Rabbit evaluation, Lily marriage, Atour and other 14 apps.
In addition, the problem of consumer reaction to the elimination of mobile phone pre-installed Apps has also been named by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology many times. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requires that mobile phones not be pre-installed, including but not limited to pre-installed application services on new machines, as well as additional items in the operating system.
How "difficult" is personal information protection?
"Personal information protection" is the key and difficult issue that the March 15 evening has been paying attention to for many years. According to the data exposed at the March 15 party in 2013, more than 58% of the Android apps detected had privacy leaks. In the 2015 CCTV 3.15 party, it was also revealed that some companies provided various support for these harassing calls, and your phone numbers and personal information have long been leaked. Until the March 15 evening party in 2019, it continued to report that application software illegally obtained users' private information, even including personal income and social security information.
The Civil Code, which came into effect on January 1, 2021, stipulates the definition of privacy and personal information, protection principles, legal responsibilities, subject rights, information processing and other issues in the form of a special chapter on "privacy and personal information protection", and promotes the solution of pain points and difficulties in personal information protection from the legal level.
Since November 1 last year, the Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China has been officially implemented, which clearly states that excessive collection of personal information, big data killing, abuse of face recognition technology, etc., shall be used to protect personal information security in an all-round way. Now that the relevant laws have been implemented, has it effectively improved the chaos of personal information leakage?
It is not known whether the above related topics will be named at this year's 3.15 evening party, but the determination of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant departments to crack down on the above chaos is obvious to all. The whole industry should do a good job of self-supervision, safeguard the rights and interests of consumers, and promote the information and communication industry to embark on the road of high-quality development.
Attached: The theme of "3.15 Evening Party" over the years
1991-1996: Undisclosed
1997: The Power of the Century
1998: For rural consumers
1999: Safe and healthy consumption under the sunshine of the rule of law
2000: Our common cause
2001: Life safety
2002: Building Integrity Together We are in action
2003: Purify the consumption environment and improve the quality of consumption
2004: Healthy Order Healthy Living
2005: Health Rights
2006: Our Wish
2007: Responsibility Harmony
2008: The Power of March 15
2009: March 15 has more power with you
2010: New rules, new impetus
2011: Escorting new consumption
2012: Building Integrity Together, You Have Me
2013: I'm in charge of my rights
2014: Making consumption more dignified
2015: Consumption in the sun
2016: Building a new consumption ecology
2017: Bringing together the power of integrity with responsibility
2018: Co-construction order, shared quality
2019: Co-governance, sharing, and assured consumption
2020: Gather strength and build beauty together
2021: Boost consumption and start from the heart
2022: Fair and honest consumption
End
Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Fan Fan
Review: Shen Qing
Producer: Liu Qicheng
I knew you were "watching"
![In the era of big data, who is in charge of my personal privacy information?[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)