Are the products recommended by third-party evaluation agencies reliable?
Reporter investigates chaos on third-party evaluation platform
● In recent years, third-party evaluation platforms have sprung up like bamboo shoots after a rain. The logic behind it is to meet consumers’ difficulty in choosing many products and their concerns about product efficacy or safety, services, prices, etc.
● At present, relevant departments have no regulations on qualifications and entry thresholds for third-party evaluation services, and there is a lack of unified evaluation standards. Some institutions have established their own standards to rate or recommend products.
And the evaluation criteria are different, the results may be completely different
● The third-party evaluation platform's business model of “being both a referee and an athlete” is difficult to guarantee the fairness of evaluation, and there are hidden dangers of false evaluation and unfair competition
● We should carry out legalized and systematic governance, guide the industry to improve, consolidate the main responsibility of enterprises, guide industry self-discipline, and strengthen accountability; in particular, we must improve and implement the public interest litigation system to better give play to the active role of consumer organizations and procuratorial organs. Quickly and efficiently solve all types of infringements involving many consumers, and provide huge punitive damages
□ Our reporter Wen Lijuan
□ "Media Tea Party" editor Li Lei
Basketball enthusiast Dong Lin (pseudonym) did not expect that after a basketball game, the newly bought sneakers were badly glued.
In order to buy a good pair of sneakers, he used the evaluation video released by a third-party evaluation platform for two consecutive days, and finally spent 620 yuan to buy a pair of sneakers that were highly recommended by the video blogger.
"Are the products recommended by these evaluation platforms so unreliable?!" Dong Lin was very puzzled.
This is also the common aspiration of many consumers.
In recent years, many third-party consumer product evaluation platforms have emerged in my country. Through product testing and rating, they claim to provide consumers with shopping references in terms of quality, price, and service. Some evaluation platforms also recommend products or even bring goods directly.
Consumers buy problematic products and question their fairness.
A recent investigation by a reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" found that the number of third-party evaluation agencies is increasing. Good and bad are mixed, and many evaluation agencies set their own standards to grade, certify, or recommend products. It is hard to say that it is scientific and fair.
One of the chaos
No barriers to entry
"Beauty Egg Evaluation", "Pink Black List", "×× Makeup All-line Evaluation", "Be careful, this type of product contains ××"... On a large social platform, the reporter entered keywords such as "beauty evaluation" Retrieval, there are "60,000+" related pictures or videos displayed.
The publishers of these content are some beauty bloggers, similar to "self-employed"; some are third-party evaluation agencies, behind which are a company team with dozens or even hundreds of people, and their evaluation products include various cosmetics. Various consumer products, such as thermos cups, wet wipes, sun protection clothing, sneakers, etc.
Industry practitioner Tao Song told reporters that in recent years, third-party evaluation platforms have sprung up, and the logic behind it is to hit consumers’ difficulty in choosing many products and their concerns about product efficacy or safety, services, and prices. .
"On the surface, the consumer goods market seems to be more standardized, because the evaluation platform can provide consumers with more references on the one hand, and on the other hand can supervise companies, forcing companies to provide better products." Tao Song said, But the market is actually more chaotic.
Tao Song explained that the development of Internet technology has greatly reduced the barriers to entry into the industry.
As long as you have a mobile phone and connect to the Internet, you can record a video of a trial or test of one or more products, send it to social platforms, and generate a shared evaluation content.
"In addition, many third-party evaluation agencies have commercial attributes. This attribute determines that their main purpose is to make profits, and fairness is difficult to guarantee." Tao Song said.
Wang Donghong, head of Hei Niu's complaint operations of China Quality News Network, pointed out sharply that my country has not yet set access conditions for third-party evaluation platforms.
In the opinion of Liu Daping, the president of the "Product Reliability Report" magazine of China Quality News, the starting point for the rise of third-party evaluation platforms is a good starting point, which is the spontaneous organization of consumers, institutions and other non-governmental forces to supervise the quality of products and services. , Is to meet the needs of consumers to improve the consumption experience, help regulate the market environment, and promote enterprises and merchants to improve the quality of products and services.
"However, relevant departments currently do not have qualifications and entry thresholds for third-party evaluation services. The unevenness of industry participants will provide a breeding ground for the gray and black industry chain such as false evaluations, marketing promotion, and malicious public relations." Liu Daping said.
Chaos II
Self-defined evaluation standards
The reporter's investigation found that in addition to the absence of entry barriers, there is currently no unified evaluation standard for third-party evaluation. Some institutions have established their own standards to rate or recommend products.
And the evaluation standards are different, the results may be completely different.
Take the trolley case as an example. An evaluation platform selected five types of trolley cases, such as Jiwu, Semir, Xiaomi, Hank, and Breme. The evaluation of weight and other aspects concluded that the Xiaomi suitcase is “expensive, with poor compression resistance, easy to deform when falling, and average price-performance ratio”.
In the evaluation of the trolley case by another evaluation platform, through the appearance details, the use of the zipper, the material, the trolley, and the portability of the test, it is concluded that the Xiaomi suitcase is "the most reliable".
In the field of beauty cosmetics, reporters combed through the evaluation content and found that the evaluation content of cosmetics accounted for a relatively large proportion, of which keywords such as whitening, moisturizing, freckle removal, and acne removal frequently appeared.
Some moisturizing evaluation methods are “smear the product on fresh rose petals, and take pictures again after 8 hours for comparison. The brighter and fuller the petals, the better the moisture retention of the product”.
Regarding the above evaluation methods, Zhai Li, an engineer at the R&D Center of Dezhou Onlida Biotechnology Co., Ltd., believes that the effect of using plants as experimental objects cannot be compared to human skin, and the results obtained are not convincing.
It is not uncommon for such self-standard evaluations to be conducted.
As early as May 2018, after Hammer Technology released the JMGO R1 mobile phone, a technology evaluation platform released the evaluation results, pointing out that the R1 mobile phone had 7 errors such as insensitive pressure-sensitive screen and lack of the lens to filter infrared rays.
However, some media and netizens believe that the results given by the technology evaluation platform are not objective.
Industry insiders interviewed by reporters pointed out that self-determined standards and unprofessional evaluation methods are the biggest chaos in the third-party evaluation industry.
"Third-party evaluation platforms represented by self-media and commercial media are mainly to C (for ordinary users). There is no evaluation standard for the entire industry. Basically, each individual talks to himself, with different perspectives, different purposes, and evaluation. The results are also different." Tao Song said, and it is more vigilant that some evaluation platforms and the brand side not only do not isolate interests, but bind interests. In this way, the evaluation standards are useless.
Liu Daping also pointed out that mainstream media and official agencies must follow a set of strict procedures and specifications when doing product evaluations, from data sampling, to data comparison, to release, and to ensure scientific and fairness.
However, when some social and non-governmental organizations make evaluations, they are full of randomness, and their scientific and fairness are also greatly compromised.
Chaos Three
False assessments are common
The reporter noticed that some "head" evaluation agencies are currently expanding their business landscape. In addition to evaluation, they are also based on interest considerations, either recommending their own products or endorsing products for others, and even some platforms have "black" competitors' products. Case.
Dong Lin discovered that since last year, a "purchase link" has been added to the third-party evaluation platform that he frequently browses. "This approach is more like providing a merchant'whitelist', that is, this merchant is recognized by the evaluation platform. Yes, the quality of the goods is guaranteed."
But in his opinion, the products sold under this model are actually difficult to maintain quality and quantity.
In October of this year, he bought a pair of sneakers through the evaluation platform. After opening the package, he found that one shoelace was missing.
"Although these evaluation platforms all promise the authenticity of the supply and have related measures, the quality of the goods varies. Sometimes the same model of sneakers differs in appearance and performance." Dong Lin suspects that it may be a shoe dealer. Defective genuine products will be drained through a third-party evaluation platform and sold at low prices.
Feng Yan from Xinjiang often buys products from third-party evaluation platforms because she "saves time and effort, and there is no need to shop around."
However, several products she recently bought from a certain evaluation platform had quality problems: after the moisturizing spray was sprayed on the face, the facial skin became red and itchy; the baby’s thermos was filled with hot water in the morning. The water was cold at noon.
Regarding the above phenomenon, Tao Song pointed out that the business model of a third-party evaluation platform that "bes both a referee and an athlete" is difficult to guarantee the fairness of evaluation, and there are hidden dangers of false evaluation and unfair competition.
After many years of working in the industry, Tao Song found that some evaluation platforms send products that have no problems to testing institutions for testing and obtain qualified testing reports.
But in fact, there are still some substandard products, which are mixed and sold to consumers.
The person in charge of a magazine in the consumer industry also pointed out that the product evaluation conducted by some private organizations and individuals has problems with whether the testing is scientific or not, and lacks fairness in the process.
For example, the sample tested may be a product that cannot be verified to confirm whether it is the manufacturer's regular production; the testing process lacks supervision, human factors, and arbitrariness.
At the beginning of this year, Guangdong Province announced the typical cases of anti-unfair competition to be investigated and dealt with in 2020.
Among them, the "Little Red Flower Evaluation" was fined 100,000 yuan for commercial slander on the list.
According to the case, it was discovered that the parties involved registered the "Small Red Flower Evaluation" column on multiple Internet platforms, published comparative experiment articles, set unreasonable comparison conditions, and obtained unfavorable test results for a Guangzhou Biotechnology Co., Ltd. In turn, it vilifies the image of the products sold by its company and reduces the goodwill of competitors.
"At present, there are some services in the market under the name of evaluation and complaint services, but in fact they are for the purpose of earning traffic and seeking personal gain. From this perspective, it is very important to establish an access mechanism for evaluation and complaint services, raise market thresholds, and strengthen industry supervision. It is necessary." Liu Daping said.
The solution
Establish a scientific mechanism
These third-party evaluation agencies should play the role of "black packs" in the consumer market, but in reality there are frequent chaos.
The interviewed experts believe that this will not only fail to maintain market order and protect consumer rights, but it will disrupt the normal market order, encourage unfair competition, and worsen the consumer market ecology.
According to Hu Gang, deputy secretary-general of the Legal Work Committee of the Internet Society of China, the core value of a third-party evaluation platform lies in independence, impartiality, science and professionalism, and conflicts of interest must be strictly prevented to truly deserve the title of “third party”.
The current chaos in evaluation results from the profitability of the main body, business overlap, professional failure, and market disorder.
The non-independent and impartial evaluation results are suspected of infringing consumers' right to know and choice, and also suspected of constituting unfair competition behaviors such as false propaganda or commercial slander, and need to bear corresponding legal responsibilities.
Du Xiujun, a lawyer at the Beijing Manifesto Law Firm, analyzed that if the false and confusing evaluation standards cause adverse impacts on the company, the victimized company can sue the evaluation platform and pursue its infringement liability, or file a complaint with the market supervision and management department under the anti-unfair competition law. The platform imposes administrative penalties.
Du Xiujun also added that those who charge ranking fees for advertising for individual businesses can be regarded as advertising operators; those who evaluate and sell products can also be regarded as advertisers.
If advertising operators or advertisers have illegal or false behaviors, according to the provisions of the Advertising Law, the market supervision and management department can impose administrative penalties; consumers can also pursue the civil liabilities of the advertisers, advertising operators, and advertisement publishers.
"Experiences at home and abroad show that the long-established and prestigious evaluation institutions are strictly based on laws and regulations, guidelines and standards, and standard methods to test products or services to ensure that the quality of test results meets the standard. The influence or intervention of commercial, financial, internal and external pressures. Among them, organizations that take the initiative to carry out evaluations are often non-profit, and most of them are consumer-oriented membership fees to partially cover the costs, and a multi-party monitoring committee is set up to ensure their Independence and impartiality." Hu Gang said.
Therefore, Hu Gang suggested that systematic governance of the rule of law should be carried out to guide the industry to improve, consolidate the main responsibility of enterprises, guide industry self-discipline, strengthen accountability, and demonstrate the powerful force of law to lead deterrence and punishment; in particular, it is necessary to improve the implementation of the public interest litigation system. Give better play to the active role of consumer organizations and procuratorial organs, quickly and efficiently solve all types of infringements involving many consumers, and provide huge punitive damages.
The person in charge of a magazine in the aforementioned consumer industry proposed that product evaluation should meet three basic principles: the evaluation funds should preferably come from social donations or public welfare organizations such as foundations, and the funds for work are not restricted by any party; standards for judging the quality of products It must comply with relevant regulations, and the testing organization must come from a third party and have the qualifications for testing and evaluation; the results must be released for the purpose of public welfare and must not be mixed with private interests.
"A scientific and reasonable mechanism is far better than the so-called'conscience'." Tao Song told reporters that he noticed that many evaluation platforms are used to claiming to be "conscience evaluation", but the mechanism is sometimes better for consumption than "conscience." The person feels at ease.
He asked whether it is possible to try to avoid some risks by means of random inspections?
For example, hundreds of samples are randomly selected for testing, and then the test results are notified to consumers, so that consumers can be "judges."
Manga / Takaoka