On April 17, this newspaper's report "How to break the "Pay attention to the public account to issue invoices" caused strong social repercussions. The report mentioned that a restaurant "must scan the code to pay attention to the official account to issue invoices". After the report was issued, many consumers reported to Beijing Youth Daily that they had encountered a similar situation, and they had to scan the code to pay attention to a third-party public account or mini program for dining or invoicing, and after paying attention, they would receive a large number of advertisements, many of which were false or even pornographic, and the experience was very poor. Complaints are more concentrated in situations where complaints are also requested, scanning codes to request personal information, paying attention to official accounts and watching advertisements when paying for parking lots.
The Beiqing News reporter further conducted an in-depth investigation on this, and interviewed a number of experts and lawyers to analyze the possible infringement of consumer rights and interests and possible solutions.
survey
Behind the chaos of the three types of code scanning, what are the operations
Behind the chaos of the "scan code" service, what are the operations that consumers can't think of? The Beiqing News reporter investigated the current three types of chaos in scanning services.
Chaos 1: "Kidnapping" forced code scanning attention
Nowadays, based on the convenience of scanning code service to consumers, many businesses vigorously promote scanning code ordering, scanning code invoicing, scanning code to pay parking fees and other services, this function not only saves a lot of manpower and time costs, but also saves the publicity cost of merchants by guiding consumers to scan the code first to pay attention to the promotion means of public account and then consumption.
Obviously, in the face of this requirement, users lose their right to choose, but between spending a lot of time defending their rights and interests and being able to solve problems quickly, consumers will mostly choose to compromise. In recent years, more and more merchants have seized on this psychology and have begun to step up, tying official accounts, communities or other promotional services in services such as ordering food or parking bills, not to mention the unfriendliness of this behavior to the elderly and consumers who are not skilled in smartphone operation. Even young people often face many difficulties, some consumers said that after scanning the code, it is not the corresponding page that appears, but jumps to follow the official account, add the store manager WeChat, and some have to join the community, sign in, etc., making the service to improve the consumer experience become a burden for consumers.
Chaos 2: "Overbearing" acquisition of personal information
At some point, access to personal information became a necessity to become invisible. Many merchants will request to obtain privacy information such as the user's avatar information, geographical location, gender age, phone number, and even personal application behavior through certain preferential activities and membership upgrades during the user's scanning operation, resulting in the leakage of users' personal data. By forming a complete picture of consumers through algorithms and big data analysis, including consumption capacity and consumption preferences, businesses can accurately push and advertise key users on this basis, so as to achieve better marketing effects. Therefore, whether there is actually another plan behind the provision of convenient services, and whether there is a huge gray industry chain behind this, most consumers do not know about this.
Chaos three: "bombardment" advertising push service
Many users choose to follow the official account in order to obtain the corresponding service, but this is only the beginning, and the merchant will continue to promote and attract repeat customers by publishing tweets, forming a community and many other ways, but the long-term advertising bombardment has made many users unbearable. In addition to marketing information, there are many businesses that choose to profit through traffic monetization, selling user information to third-party platforms for the promotion of a large number of false advertisements and even pornographic advertisements, and some users with weak media literacy cannot distinguish the authenticity of information and are easily deceived.
unscramble
Behind the forced code scanning chaos, who is the real beneficiary
In fact, mandatory code scanning has been concerned about the problem for a long time, and in the early days of WeChat's development, this method was regarded as a necessary operational skill for official accounts, and it did not feel inappropriate at the time. But as the public account gradually penetrated into all aspects of daily life, the hidden problems in it were gradually exposed.
Internet observer Ge Jia believes that the root cause of the growing concern about forced code scanning is that there are huge economic interests hidden in it. Because the number of followers of the official account is priced in the traffic market, generally speaking, the market price of each follower should be between 200 and 500 yuan for the public account that can enter the advertising traffic market. The number of followers directly affects the price of advertising. Therefore, as long as an official account has enough followers, whether it is sending advertisements, pushing product links, or carrying out other commercial activities, it can profit a lot from it, which is why merchants do not hesitate to affect the user experience.
Liu Xingliang, president of the DCCI Internet Research Institute, analyzed that by forcibly scanning the code to issue invoices or ordering food, in addition to monetizing through official account traffic, there are also the following reasons for merchants and mini program developers to implement this method: First, it is to increase traffic and attention. By forcing code scanning to pay attention to official accounts, you can quickly increase the attention and traffic of your own official accounts and mini programs; Second, by following the official account, merchants can send advertisements to users, so as to better promote products or marketing services; Third, by using the personal information provided by users, merchants can better understand the needs and behavioral characteristics of consumers, so as to carry out precision marketing by improving the quality of products or services and formulating more effective marketing strategies; Fourth, driven by interests, it cannot be ruled out that there may be certain partnerships between merchants and third-party platforms. For example, if a merchant requires users to pay attention to an invoice platform in order to issue invoices, etc., it is likely that there is an exchange of interests between them and these invoice enterprise platforms.
Article 22 of the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Consumers clearly stipulates that business operators shall issue invoices or shopping receipts to consumers in accordance with national regulations or commercial practices, which is a legal obligation of merchants. Since it is a statutory obligation, the business operator should not set other thresholds or restrictive conditions on the basis of performing the statutory obligation.
Lu Yun, director of the Consumer Rights and Interests Legal Professional Committee of the Beijing Lawyers Association, said that nowadays, many business operators on the grounds of convenience and speed, when consumers request to issue bills, they require to scan the code first, which is actually a disguised threshold or condition for issuing bills to perform legal obligations, which has violated the law.
remind
Mandatory code scanning is not only illegal, but also has potential risks
In daily life, forced code scanning to pay attention to, authorize personal information and other behaviors have become very common, in addition to the process of use, may waste a lot of time and energy users, affecting the user experience, at first glance it seems that there is no other harm to consumers, but in fact there are many risks hidden behind it.
In this regard, Liu Xingliang listed four major risks that consumers may face: First, personal privacy leakage. Merchants may cause personal data leakage by forcibly requesting personal information, including avatars, phone numbers, etc. Second, it is easy to fall into some consumer traps. Merchants sending a large number of advertisements and preferential information to users may induce consumers to impulsively consume without fully understanding the product or service and fall into the consumption trap. Third, it is harassed by pornographic ads and false advertisements, and the advertisements sent by some businesses may contain pornographic content and false promotional information. Fourth, personal information is misused, if the merchant uses the obtained personal information for some illegal purposes, or even sells it to a third party or uses it for other improper purposes, it will further violate the privacy and legitimate rights and interests of our consumers. Ge Jia also said that after the passive leakage of personal information, it is likely to be used by businesses for commercial activities such as advertising harassment, and their personal data may also be used for profit or even leaked to a wider commercial space, thereby endangering the security of personal information.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the Consumer Rights Protection Law Research Association of the China Law Society, believes that it is unfair and unreasonable for businesses to set up clauses to require scanning codes to pay attention to and forcibly obtain consumers' personal information, and belongs to the overlord clause. If the merchant must obtain this information to provide services, or even use the collected information for other purposes, which obviously restricts the rights of consumers and violates the relevant provisions of the Consumer Rights Protection Law and the Personal Information Protection Law, consumers have the right to refuse, or they can complain to the tax department and report, requiring the merchant to provide consumption credentials such as invoices.
Ideas
How to solve the chaos of forced code scanning? Experts support it like this
Internet observer Ge Jia believes that in order to solve this problem, efforts should be made from two aspects: on the one hand, the management department should clarify the relevant regulations and make a clear definition of the commercial nature and profit-making nature of compulsory attention, that is, clearly stipulating that public account operators must not adopt compulsory attention methods to give users full choice. Tencent WeChat officials can also adjust product functions according to the actual situation, making "forced attention" unfeasible at the level of product functions. On the other hand, Ge Jia believes that WeChat can also conduct data mining on the official accounts operated by merchants, and regularly clean up the followers in the official accounts of merchants who have not been browsed or clicked on the content pushed by the merchant for a long time, because such followers are likely to be passive followers who are forced to follow during use, and even they do not realize that they have paid attention to certain public accounts.
Liu Xingliang summarized five effective countermeasures from multiple levels: First, from the institutional level, relevant government departments should strengthen supervision, establish multi-department joint law enforcement and supervision mechanisms, strictly implement the identification standards for the use of QR codes, and reduce or prohibit the compulsory collection of user information by official account platforms. Second, at the national level, to improve complaint channels, government departments should establish and improve online and offline consumer infringement complaint channels, and establish long-term mechanisms to punish these behaviors that may involve infringement of consumer rights and interests. Third, from the consumer level, consumers themselves are the first line of defense, everyone should keep their eyes open, increase vigilance, improve self-protection awareness, do not believe in advertising, and achieve rational consumption. Fourth, from the business level, the merchants themselves must achieve industry self-discipline, and can also be constrained through some industry associations. Fifth, from the platform level, as an important responsible subject, it is necessary to assume corresponding responsibilities and management obligations. Whether it is social media or payment platforms, the review and supervision of merchants and mini programs should be strengthened. In the face of the main problems that may involve violations at present, order merchants to rectify or remove them in a timely manner.
In addition to the original Qingyuan, lawyer Lu Yun also said, "Scanning the code to order food and scan the code to issue invoices seems to be convenient, but the cost of being a consumer is actually greater." For example, some platform companies will obtain data, obtain traffic, through big data analysis, they push or distribute accordingly, and then realize the benefits of the platform. We need some convenience and convenience, but this convenience cannot be premised on infringing on the rights and interests of consumers, or on the failure of operators to perform their legal obligations. ”
In this regard, Liu Xingliang also suggested that the innovation and upgrading of new technologies such as artificial intelligence can be encouraged, especially through relevant government departments, to encourage the innovation of Internet intelligent applications to provide consumers with more choices. At the same time, some third-party evaluation platforms can also be built to evaluate and rank merchants and their services in the market, making it easier for consumers to find trustworthy merchants. Finally, and most importantly, the relevant departments should formulate stricter regulations and high penalties to achieve standardized operation of the entire industry through "fighting poison with poison".
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Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Wen Jing Intern Angel
Editor/Fan Hongwei