What can we do to end some apps "easy to board and difficult to disembark"?
According to the "Worker Daily" report, on December 14, the China Consumers Association released the "50 APP Account Cancellation and Automatic Recommendation Unsubscription Evaluation Report".
Regarding whether the APP account can be successfully cancelled, 20 of the 50 apps have problems of varying degrees, including the failure to specify the cancellation conditions, the unreasonable setting of the cancellation conditions, and the inability to log out directly through the APP.
“It’s easy to get on the ship and difficult to get off the ship”, this is the intuitive feeling of many consumers for some apps.
Normally, consumers only need to fill in simple personal information to "one-click registration", but it is often more difficult to cancel an APP account.
In fact, it is the legal right of consumers to cancel APP accounts.
The Regulations on the Protection of Personal Information of Telecommunications and Internet Users promulgated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2013 clarified that telecommunications business operators and Internet information service providers should stop the collection and use of users’ personal information after users terminate their use of telecommunications services or Internet information services. And provide users with the service of canceling the number or account.
The “E-Commerce Law” that came into effect on January 1, 2019 specifically stipulates that e-commerce operators shall clearly indicate the methods and procedures for user information inquiries, corrections, deletions, and user cancellations, and shall not query, correct, delete, and user information on user information. Unreasonable conditions are set for logout.
However, it can be seen from the above report that it is still difficult for the majority of users to log off their APP accounts.
Among them, there are not only "open guns" such as unspecified deregistration conditions and inability to directly deregister, but also "secret arrows" such as deregistration conditions and unreasonable process settings.
Some apps stipulate that accounts with outdated or missing account information cannot be applied for cancellation. The logic in this can be described as weird-users have decided not to use the app anymore. What is the point of updating and perfecting relevant information?
Some APPs stipulate that they can be cancelled after manual review, but in fact, manual review means that no one will accept it or the review will be indefinitely indefinite.
Industry insiders pointed out that there are technical reasons for the difficulty of APP deregistration, but it is mainly a matter of interest.
Internet companies regard data as treasure and even use it as an important bargaining chip for financing.
At the same time, relatively principled regulations have created the possibility for some APP operating companies to embarrass consumers under the drive of interests.
For example, "You must not set unreasonable conditions for user logout." What is reasonable and what is unreasonable is often left to the enterprise to decide, and consumers can only passively accept it.
"Major events in the world must be done in detail."
To effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, precise refinement of relevant legal systems is essential.
Previously, when the "Advertising Law" was revised, it was clearly stated that the use of the Internet to publish and send advertisements must be closed with one click.
Later, some websites made work around by setting a countdown to close advertisements.
In this regard, the recent draft of the Internet advertising management measures for public comments made it clear that “it must not be closed until the countdown is over” and intends to plug this loophole.
Similarly, with regard to the difficulty of app account cancellation, relevant laws and regulations need to be further refined. Relevant departments should carefully study the "36 strategies" of APP operating companies, and make targeted moves to prevent cancellations. "Profiles" with reasonable conditions and a "negative list" are listed to completely overthrow the "little abacus" of some companies.
Zhang Chunyi