Uncover the benefit chain of "compensated deletion of bad reviews"
Recently, the Hebei Branch of the Tianjin Public Security Bureau uncovered an illegal criminal case involving illegal business activities in the form of a network "water army".
It is understood that the criminal gang made a profit of nearly 3 million yuan through the paid deletion of negative online reviews, involving more than 10 provinces.
At present, three people have been transferred by the procuratorial organ for review and prosecution.
This is also one of the typical cases with the most people arrested, the most complete ecological chain, and the most complete fixed evidence among such cases.
In the special action of "Jingwang 2019", the Hebei Branch noticed that college student Zhang Feng (pseudonym) solicited business on the Internet in the name of paid removal of bad reviews.
"Our preliminary investigation found that Zhang Feng made more than one million yuan in profits by deleting posts on major portals and social platforms." said Jin Hui, a policeman from the Internet Security Detachment of Hebei Branch. Over the years, under the cover of normal operations, the consulting company hired personnel to delete posts on the Internet, and illegally obtained huge profits.
The company was founded in Beijing, illegal activities are on the Internet, members are spread all over the country, and the connections between each other are complicated.
"In order to advance the progress of the investigation, we have established a task force with network security, investigation, legal system, and local police stations as member units." said Liu Tongbin, director of the Hebei branch. Network "water forces", contacting website internal personnel and other methods illegally deleted more than 600 negative posts involving more than 30 websites, and illegally made more than 500,000 yuan. The personnel who assisted in deleting posts involved Hubei, Henan, Zhejiang and other provinces.
The reporter tried to search the Internet and found many so-called "deleted negative reviews" and contact information such as QQ numbers left by the other party.
The reporter arbitrarily consulted one of the customer services, and the other party stated that the charges ranged from tens to thousands of yuan depending on the platform.
When the reporter asked about the methods and channels for deleting bad reviews, many "deleting bad reviews companies" all expressed inconvenience, but they can guarantee absolute security.
"Fake complaint letters, lawyer letters and other false materials, and request the deletion of posts from websites on the grounds of inconsistency with the facts and suspected infringement is the most common method. Generally, websites will delete posts to avoid trouble."
Liu Tongbin said that if this method does not work, they will directly delete posts through the internal personnel of the relevant website to enter the operating system, and sometimes they will hire Internet naval forces to publish false praise and suppress negative reviews.
Generally, the person who deletes posts is only at the end of the entire interest chain.
Take a public relations consulting company in Beijing as an example. They collected public relations fees from related companies to delete bad reviews on the Internet. After gaining illegal benefits, they would peel off the skin. In this case, Zhang Feng only got a quarter.
According to Zhang Chunhu, deputy director of the Xinkaihe Police Station of the Hebei Branch, the suspects in this type of case mainly rely on online virtual identities.
The task force used online investigations combined with offline bank accounts and other information to comprehensively research and judge, gradually determine the suspect's true identity and location, and fixed a relatively complete chain of evidence that can be mutually confirmed. Finally, a breakthrough was made in the case.
The reporter found that the paid deletion of bad reviews appeared around 2008.
However, all major websites have detailed regulations on the deletion of negative reviews, such as the comments themselves containing insulting words, rights holders' notification methods and statutory necessary content to satisfy the publicity of network service providers.
In this regard, Yu Yang, associate professor of criminal law at Tianjin University Law School, pointed out that in addition to professional deletion of negative reviews, malicious negative reviews have also been repeatedly prohibited.
Not only has it disrupted the normal network environment, it has also highlighted the problem of network credit.
Regarding the regulation of network evaluation, our country's laws have been exploring.
Reasonable standards should be set, which can protect the credit evaluation system and eliminate bad content such as malicious bad reviews.
Yu Yang believes that for various websites, objective and true user evaluation is a very important business indicator and an important basis for consumer identification and selection.
The E-commerce Law stipulates that e-commerce platform operators shall not delete consumers’ comments on the products sold or services provided on their platforms.
"In addition, in accordance with the Criminal Law and other relevant laws and regulations, the use of online platform resources to delete news websites, forums, post bars, Weibo and other posts illegally for others may constitute illegal business crimes. And the internal work of deleting posts through professional convenience Personnel who violate national regulations and delete, modify, or add data stored, processed or transmitted in the computer information system with serious consequences shall be convicted and punished for the crime of damaging the computer information system." Yu Yang said.
"We open the way, fight to promote prevention, and fight to promote governance. In the process of handling this case, we will transfer some clues to relevant departments for administrative punishment, and work with relevant parties to promote the soundness and improvement of relevant policies, laws, mechanisms and measures. Regulate the order of cyberspace from the source and prevent and control cyber violations and chaos.” Liu Tongbin said.
Our reporter Zhu Hong