Live streaming has become the unspoken rule of the e-commerce live streaming industry
Malicious registration and sales account industry chain grows wildly
□ Our reporter Han Dandong
□ Intern Wang Xue
During the "Double 11" and "Double 12" period, Xiao Wang, a sophomore at a college, simultaneously turned on his 10 mobile phones and entered different live broadcast rooms to watch, like, interact, and grab orders.
"This is my part-time job. This year's'Double 12' has started on December 10th. I barely slept and I have been checking orders in major live broadcast rooms." Xiao Wang told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily.
In recent days, many celebrity live broadcast rooms have also been exposed to scandals of increasing sales of live broadcast rooms by swiping orders-how much water is there behind the tens of thousands of views and amazing orders?
"Live streaming has become an unspoken rule in the e-commerce live broadcast industry, and its essence is data fraud." Zheng Ning, director of the Law Department of the School of Cultural Industry Management of Communication University of China, believes that there are two reasons for this. The anchor’s worth; the second is to brush the product sales and complete the contract.
"This kind of behavior has caused the false prosperity of e-commerce live broadcasts, is misleading to consumers, has defrauded merchants who have signed contracts, and has caused improper damage to market order, and should be regulated."
Increase sales by brushing orders
Internet anchor suspected of fraud
A reporter from the Rule of Law Daily entered keywords such as “live viewing” and “live service” on an e-commerce platform, and immediately appeared many products ranging in price from 1 yuan to 10 yuan. The product descriptions all included “live service applet” and “full”. Drill on the store", "upgrade the store level" and so on.
According to the customer service of an online store called "×× Operations", you can buy 100 online viewers on a live broadcast platform for 50 yuan, and 10,000 viewers in a live broadcast room for 20 yuan. The specific process is to broadcast live The link to the homepage of the time is sent to the customer service, who will operate
During the investigation, another "XX Media" that provides machine-based ordering services directly sent a video tutorial on WeChat, which included the installation tutorial, usage tutorial, and download address of the machine-based ordering software.
This software has five functions, namely, speaking function, viewing the number of viewers, displaying ××× coming, displaying ××× purchase, displaying ××× attention, and the software’s like speed, speaking time, and increase in the number of viewers The interval time can be set manually.
The customer service said: "You can use it on a live broadcast platform for one month for 450 yuan. Currently, this software has been provided to thousands of live broadcast rooms. The platform will not investigate and deal with it and is 100% safe."
It is understood that social platforms have groups such as "×× Live Streaming Rushing Heat" and other groups, which are also clearly marked with prices, such as “experience price 1 yuan for 50 fans, 70 yuan for 500 fans, and ×× live watching 40 yuan for 10,000 people , XX live interactive software is rented for 800 yuan a month."
However, according to a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily", there is a risk of machine-swiping orders being investigated and punished by the platform. Unrestricted increase in the number of viewers and frequent and fixed-mode speeches will also allow consumers to see flaws, so manual-swiping is favored.
Xiao Wang has the WeChat accounts of 1,000 merchants. These 1,000 merchants will send him information about the products that need to be swiped from time to time. Some are the products that the shop needs to make the top search rankings, and some are some live broadcast rooms that are in urgent need of popularity.
If it is a product that needs to be ordered, Xiao Wang will first collect the product, and then search for "similar products", and then place an order for this product after shopping around, so that the platform can leave the impression of "select carefully before placing an order" .
If it is a live broadcast room, Xiao Wang will directly enter, then like and interact. Generally, he will watch for about two hours, and the commission will be 60 yuan.
"Every product will be grabbed. Send screenshots of the grabbed products to the merchant. You can get a commission of about 5 yuan per order. I don’t want those products. I will refund after the live broadcast. I usually use 10 mobile phones. Operate at the same time, enter different live broadcast rooms, grab orders, screenshots, and refund at the same time!" Xiao Wang said.
According to industry insiders, the GMV (website transaction value) of many top anchors in live broadcast rooms can easily reach hundreds of millions of yuan, but behind these inflated sales there are many "cats and tricks".
For example, the sales performance of the live broadcast room is often displayed after the anchor is downloaded, and the refund of the order is not counted; the team in the live broadcast room buys within the team, grabs the lowest price of the merchandise and makes a collective purchase, but in statistics When the anchor sales are calculated, the GMV is not calculated based on the spike price, but based on the original price of the product; etc.
In this regard, Zheng Ning believes that many live broadcast rooms increase the transaction volume of live broadcast rooms by brushing orders and speculating letters, and some anchors use this to increase pit fees, which may constitute fraud.
According to Article 148 of the Civil Code, one party has the right to request a people’s court or an arbitration institution to revoke a civil law act that one party uses fraudulently to make the other party commit a civil legal act contrary to its true meaning.
Larger amounts may even constitute the crime of contract fraud in the criminal law-in the process of signing and performing contracts, fraudulently obtaining the other party’s property by falsifying facts or concealing the truth.
Steal citizens' personal information
Malicious registration
A reporter from the Rule of Law Daily found that the industry chain for registration, account maintenance, and account sales still exists.
During the interview, a reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" learned from the customer service of an e-commerce platform that one user identity information can register 6 accounts, but there are tens of thousands of accounts in some order-checking software, as many as millions.
Mr. Li, who sells billing software, told a reporter from the Rule of Law Daily: “We have used some technical means to intercept certain information databases, and then take some citizen information directly for use. There is also a batch purchase of mobile phone numbers, one The phone card is about 10 yuan, and we have long-term cooperation with merchants selling mobile phone numbers."
On December 1, 2018, Tencent issued the "Internet Account Malicious Registration Black Industry Governance Report", which pointed out that malicious registration is not for normal use, violates national regulations and platform registration rules, and uses multiple channels to obtain mobile phones The act of using false or illegally obtained identity information as registration materials to break through Internet security protection measures, manually or automatically through programs and tools, to create online accounts in batches.
It is understood that up to now, the phenomenon of malicious registration has always existed, and repeated prohibitions have continued. Many swiping software use mobile phone card numbers obtained through improper means.
However, after registering a new account, the account without browsing history, purchase history, or viewing history has no value.
"A batch of new accounts suddenly collects a certain product and pays attention to a certain live broadcast room, which will attract the attention of the platform, so the new account must be raised." Xiao Li said.
A reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" learned that maintaining an account is also a "make money" for many people. Many part-time groups have "10 accounts 2 hours a day" advertisements, requiring part-timers to log in to these 10 accounts with their mobile phones. , Browse product information, bookmark designated products, and talk with merchants.
"The fastest way to raise an account is to buy goods. There are many posters on an e-commerce platform that cost 1 cent. If you buy 5 yuan at a time, you can write a good comment after receiving it." Xiao Li said.
Some merchants have seen "business opportunities" from this, raising a large number of accounts, clearly marking the price, the higher the account level, the higher the selling price.
At the same time, in major part-time groups, there are also behaviors of renting out their own accounts for ordering. The higher the account level, the higher the rental price.
According to Zhao Zhanzhan, a researcher at the China E-Commerce Research Center, "The operator of the order-checking software helps others to check the order, and his behavior violates the anti-unfair competition law, e-commerce law and other laws and regulations, and may be fined and other administrative penalties. A single software operator steals or illegally purchases other people’s personal information to register an account. This behavior constitutes a crime of infringing on citizens’ personal information and may also bear criminal responsibility."
Zheng Ning said that according to Article 253 of the Criminal Law, the crime of infringing on citizens’ personal information refers to the violation of relevant state regulations by selling or providing citizens’ personal information to others. If the circumstances are serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and concurrently Or only a fine; if the circumstances are particularly serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall be fined.
If tens of thousands of accounts are obtained by stealing citizens’ personal information, it is likely to constitute a crime.
Policies and regulations need to be implemented
Platform supervision still needs to be strengthened
In recent years, relevant departments have issued a number of policies and regulations to regulate e-commerce live broadcasts, in order to make this emerging industry conform to the laws of market competition and promote economic prosperity.
In June 2020, the China Advertising Association issued the "Code of Conduct for Online Live Marketing Activities", which put forward requirements for the conduct of various participants in the online live broadcast, including merchants, anchors, and online live marketing platforms. Article 6 stipulates the main body of online live marketing. It is not allowed to falsify or falsify transaction data and user evaluations by falsifying traffic such as order brushing and letter speculation; it is not allowed to conduct false or misleading commercial propaganda to deceive or mislead consumers.
On November 6, the State Administration of Market Supervision issued the "Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Supervision of Online Live Marketing Activities", emphasizing the consolidation of the legal responsibilities of relevant entities.
According to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, it is necessary to investigate and punish the implementation of false or misleading commercial propaganda, and help other operators conduct false or misleading business propaganda, such as fictitious transactions or evaluations in live broadcast marketing, deception and misleading consumers by live broadcasters, etc. Misleading commercial propaganda, counterfeiting and confusion, commercial slander, and illegal sales with prizes and other illegal activities.
On November 10, under the guidance of Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Market Supervision and Zhejiang Provincial Cyberspace Administration, Zhejiang Internet Merchants Association issued the first national standard for live webcast e-commerce industry standards "Live E-commerce Management Regulations", requiring platforms to establish merchants , The host qualification review mechanism to monitor the live broadcast room, strengthen the management of the merchants and the host's commitment in the live broadcast, all the anchors must be authenticated by their real names and participate in training.
On November 13, the “Regulations on the Management of Internet Live Marketing Information Content Services (Draft for Comment)” issued by the State Cyberspace Administration of China proposed that operators of live broadcast rooms and live broadcast marketers engaged in Internet live broadcast marketing information content services shall comply with laws, regulations and Relevant national regulations, follow public order and good customs, publish product or service information truthfully, accurately, and comprehensively, and must not do the following: publishing false information, deceiving, or misleading users; fabricating or tampering with attention, page views, likes, transactions, etc. Data traffic fraud.
At the same time, topics related to live streaming and data fraud have also been frequently searched.
The merchant selling the software for checking orders told the reporter of "Rules of Law Daily": "The platform will definitely not check the problem of machine checking. It is 100% safe." It can be seen that the introduction and implementation of relevant policies and regulations is imminent.
Zhao Zhanzhu believes that data fraud in the live broadcast process is very concealed. If no one provides relevant clues, or the live broadcast platform does not use technical means to distinguish, it is usually difficult to find out. Therefore, the market supervision department must take the responsibility and implement the relevant policy.
At the same time, the insiders are encouraged to provide clues, formulate relevant reward policies, and cooperate with live broadcast platforms to find illegal clues through technical means, and then increase the crackdown.
Regarding the implementation of policies and regulations, Zheng Ning suggested that law enforcement agencies should carry out targeted special actions to focus on rectifying a batch of live broadcast rooms with falsified live data; implement a credit record system, blacklist untrustworthy live broadcast rooms, and make them public Record; use the complaint reporting mechanism to encourage consumers to complain about the live broadcast room.