"Making money" App withdrawal routines are intended to attract people, experts remind
Forming a "personnel chain" and "money chain" cannot escape the suspicion of pyramid schemes
Our reporter Zhao Chenxi
Watching news to earn cash, swiping videos to get red envelopes, and even walking and sleeping, someone will give you "benefits"... People can't help but sigh, in the Internet age, how easy has it become to make money?
In recent years, various "making money" apps have emerged one after another, attracting countless people to download.
Zhang Tao, partner of Beijing Deheng Law Firm and director of the Network and Data Research Center, said in an interview with a reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" that most of these apps use "head-pulling" marketing methods, and the platform must strictly clarify the boundaries between marketing and pyramid selling. Avoid crossing the line.
"Making money" App "pulling people's heads" has become a fixed routine
Handy, a young treasure mother, likes to swipe through short videos in her spare time. Once, an advertisement popped up on a short video platform that "watching videos can easily make a lot of money" attracted her attention.
Through the link, she downloaded the software.
"Swiping a video will give you corresponding notes, 10,000 notes can be exchanged for 1 yuan, and you will also get additional cash rewards for completing the daily check-in." Because the software has no withdrawal limit, Han Di successfully withdraws the check-in after downloading. 1 yuan, and then the system pushes a message to "remind" her that she can make more money by "pulling people's heads".
The promotion of "you will get 35 yuan on the first invitation day" made the heart-wrenching Han Di send the download link to a friend. After the friend downloaded the software with the link she sent, the software showed that the money had been received, and the system reminded that you can still invite friends to download, Continuing to expand the funds, but after successfully inviting 3 friends, Han Di invited 5 new people to register, but the software showed that the invitation failed and no corresponding rewards were issued.
After using the software, Han Di also found that if you don't rely on "pulling people's heads", the income from video swiping alone is very low, and the platform has fixed gears. Except for the lowest one, which is 0.3 yuan, the rest of the gears are at least 15 yuan. Yuan, if the amount is not enough, you cannot withdraw cash, you can only dig new users and earn "capital fees".
Compared with Han Di, Li Bo, who is engaged in self-employed business in Beijing, not only did not make money from an app that is also known as "swiping video to make money", but also "made money".
The app he uses gets tokens by swiping videos to exchange for cash, but the platform has to deduct a lot of handling fees for the token to be redeemed. There are two solutions. One is to recruit new people to join. The more coins there are, the lower the withdrawal fee will be; the second is to purchase a certain amount of coins by recharging to unlock some high-level tasks and get more coins.
But after recharging, Li Bo found that the income from doing the task was still very small, and the income of insisting on it for a month was less than the recharging fee.
In the current mobile application market, there are not a few apps with the gimmick of "making money", and they cover a wide range of fields.
After downloading several softwares, the reporter found that such software basically inserts advertisements of other software of the same type during use, and attracts users to download with red envelope icons or words such as "click to make money".
Forming a "personnel chain" and "money chain" may be suspected of pyramid schemes
Almost every "making money" software claims to have no routines, but the reporter found that, in addition to the difficulties in the withdrawal process, one of the core routines of this type of software is "pulling people's heads". If users want to get high returns, they must pull More people "join".
In fact, the method of "pulling people's heads" is not unique to "making money" apps. Currently, many software have so-called "pulling new" discounts to increase downloads and traffic.
"According to the definition of pyramid selling in the Prohibition of Pyramid Selling Regulations implemented in 2005, the behavior of 'pulling people's heads' is one of the manifestations of pyramid selling." Zhang Tao reminded that when the behavior of "pulling people's heads" is becoming more and more frequent, we should be vigilant. It slides into pyramid schemes.
Previously, some apps including "Qubu" were investigated by relevant departments for suspected pyramid schemes. How to distinguish which ones are normal marketing methods and which ones are suspected of pyramid schemes?
Zhang Tao pointed out that according to the "Regulations on Prohibition of Pyramid Selling", pyramid selling means that an organizer or operator develops personnel, and calculates and pays remuneration based on the number of personnel or sales performance directly or indirectly developed by the person to be developed, or requires the person to be developed. Development personnel obtain membership qualifications on the condition of paying a certain fee to seek illegal benefits, disrupt economic order, and affect social stability.
Based on this definition, Zhang Tao believes that in the process of app marketing, if the organizer or operator requires members to develop lower-level members, and gives economic rewards based on the number of lower-level members directly or indirectly developed, it may constitute a pyramid scheme.
For example, some apps encourage users to develop offline, and while giving red envelope cashback rewards, users are divided into one-star talent, two-star talent, three-star talent and other levels. The level is proportional to the number of offline development. Dividing rewards ranging from high to low may be suspected of constituting pyramid schemes.
In addition, if the so-called entry fee is charged in the App marketing process, such as requiring the development personnel to pay a certain fee or pay a fee in disguised form to obtain the qualification to join, it may also be suspected of being a pyramid scheme.
Zhao Zhan, a special researcher of the E-commerce Research Center of Netease, further pointed out that whether the "pulling people's head" behavior of the app constitutes pyramid selling depends on whether it constitutes a "personnel chain" and "money chain".
Specifically, the "personnel chain" is through the development of offline, so that old users and new users form an upper and lower level, forming an interpersonal network of online and offline; "money chain" is based on the direct and indirect development of the participants themselves. The number of people is calculated and paid based on the number of people, or each level can extract a certain commission or commission from the membership fee or other fees added by the next level.
In the opinion of Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, the marketing model of "pulling people's heads" cannot be "one-size-fits-all" and hastily identified as pyramid schemes, but should be combined with the user development model and rules, the basis for giving economic rewards, Factors such as rules for calculation and payment of remuneration are used to make comprehensive judgments.
Zhu Wei has studied some software that uses "pulling people's heads" as a marketing method, and found that most of these software do not divide personnel levels, but only use red envelopes, cashbacks and other means to encourage users to continuously recommend new users to register and use, although often in the withdrawal process. Setting certain routines, and even deceiving and misleading users, but such "pulling people" behaviors alone do not belong to the category of pyramid schemes.
Need to strengthen application platform review obligations
In the name of fake commodity transactions such as instant killing of commodities, promotion of commodities, and provision of services, an app develops regional managers and regional directors through the form of return of income, incentives for shopping, subsidies, etc., and induces members to continuously "pull people" to develop offline. In order to obtain income and earn the price difference, the capital transaction chain is continuously expanded; an app asks members to buy "Happy Beans" online, and then uses "Happy Beans" to snap up fake product orders launched by the platform in the App, and then send them to lower-level members after increasing the price. Resell to get the price difference, and make profits through the flow of fake orders among members step by step... In recent years, relevant departments have announced many cases of using apps for online pyramid sales.
In Zhao Occupy's view, compared with traditional offline pyramid schemes, online marketing models under the guise of "Internet +" emerge in an endless stream, which are more concealed, involve more people, higher amounts, and are more harmful. Driven by interests, the public lacks the ability to discriminate and is easy to "get recruited".
This requires relevant departments such as Internet informatization, market supervision, and public security to increase supervision over such behaviors, form a synergy of supervision, and issue early warning information in a timely manner to raise public awareness.
At the same time, consideration should be given to the release of relevant specifications to regulate the marketing methods of “pulling people’s heads” of apps to prevent cross-border.
Zhang Tao agrees with this. He added that the existing laws stipulate the types of pyramid selling activities, but do not make further detailed provisions on the specific judgment standards. The unclear illegal standards will also promote the opportunism of operators. It is suggested that specific criteria for judging MLM behavior should be specified for the new type of network MLM.
"Some of the apps that have been investigated and taken off the shelves due to the development of "pulling people's heads" and were suspected of online pyramid selling have been re-launched as another app through a "makeover" approach." Zhang Tao believes that this is related to the The current "Regulations on the Administration of Mobile Internet Application Information Services" (hereinafter referred to as the "Administrative Regulations") have low requirements for the review obligations of application platforms.
"The obligations of application platforms should be emphasized in laws and regulations." Zhang Tao pointed out that the draft for comments on the revision of the "Administrative Regulations" released in January 2022 has greatly strengthened the review obligations of application platforms, requiring that application distribution platforms should establish Improve management and technical measures to timely detect and prevent application violations.
Consider using apps for pyramid schemes to be emphasized as one of the illegal acts that the app platform should detect and prevent in a timely manner.
At the same time, the application platform should be guided to conduct special supervision on applications that adopt a marketing model similar to "pulling people's heads", and the platform should warn and identify its risks. Once it is found that its marketing "out of control" has evolved into a pyramid scheme, it should take timely measures to suspend services. , take down and other disposal measures, keep records and report to relevant departments.