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An investigation by the Beijing Railway Transport Procuratorate revealed that some food delivery platforms set obstacles for consumers to inquire about the qualifications of businesses.
The takeaway platform explained that multiple queries triggered the "anti-crawler" technology, which made it impossible to query again within a certain period of time.
The industry believes that the "anti-reptile" strategy is not a reason to infringe the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
Consumers inquired about e-commerce qualifications, but were prompted by the platform that "something went wrong."
How is this going?
The platform for consumers to check whether the establishment of barriers to business qualifications violates the statutory publicity obligation, and there is a certain space for interpretation of current laws and regulations.
When there is a conflict between network information security and the right to know, how should the relevant departments protect the rights and interests of consumers?
Check the business qualification "fancy" blocked
The Supreme People's Procuratorate has recently released a batch of typical public interest litigation hearings, including a case of "obstructed inquiry of qualifications".
In March 2020, Jiangsu consumer Mr. Xu discovered that during the epidemic, many people ordered takeaways at home, but some online sellers were incomplete.
Some stores on the platform only have one business license, and some store licenses say that they sell primary agricultural products, but they sell processed food.
Consumers also reported that logging in to a food delivery platform to view the qualifications of online restaurants requires entering a mobile phone number and filling in a mobile verification code.
Although some businesses do not require entering a mobile phone number, after consumers have clicked to check the store qualifications many times, the mobile phone number is included in the platform blacklist and cannot continue to view and place orders.
According to relevant regulations, it is a legal obligation for the platform to review and publicize the qualifications of merchants, and the platform must provide consumers with convenient means of inquiry.
The take-out platform set up barriers for consumers to inquire about the qualifications of merchants. This issue has aroused the attention of the procuratorial organs.
The prosecutors of the Beijing Railway Transport Procuratorate conducted an investigation on the e-commerce platform where their domicile is in Beijing, and filed a case for investigation.
The investigation found that some operators did not publicize their business licenses and food production and operation licenses in the mini program; some operators indicated "Qualification Guarantee" in the "Service" column of the food sales page, but the "View Details" link was not available Click to open; some food operators have unclear qualification announcements and low recognition; some qualification information uploads are messy, which increases the difficulty of consumer identification.
The investigation also found that after entering the food operator's page on a certain platform, clicking to view the qualifications of the merchants, and after checking a few merchants, the prompt "An error occurred, try again later" appeared.
Setting up query barriers whether it violates the obligation of publicity
If a merchant who does not have food sales qualifications sells food with potential safety hazards through the platform, and consumers cannot inquire whether the merchant is qualified on the platform in advance, this will not only cause harm to consumers’ right to know and “tip safety”, but also Conducive to maintaining e-commerce business order and market management order.
The Beijing Railway Transport Procuratorate issued a procuratorial recommendation to the market supervision and management department on June 5, 2020 after filing a public interest litigation on the "Qualification Query Obstruction" case.
The market supervision and management department deployed a one-month special rectification work for online food safety, investigated and dealt with the problems of unpublished qualification information, unclear publicity, and low recognition indicated in the procuratorial proposal, and urged the platform to strengthen rectification.
However, e-commerce platforms set barriers for consumers to view the qualifications of operators. Whether this violates the statutory qualification disclosure obligations, there is a certain degree of interpretation space for current laws and regulations, and market supervision departments also have differences of opinion on this point.
The market supervision department stated in the letter replying to the procuratorial suggestion that it had checked the issue of "obstacles to license inquiries".
After its verification, several times in a short period of time, click to view the merchant qualifications in the relevant platform, and prompt "An error occurred, try again later." This is because the platform restricts access to devices and accounts that are suspected of crawling data, rather than hindering consumers View qualification information; in order to protect the security of business information, the platform imposes access restrictions on devices and accounts that are suspected of crawling data.
The undertaking prosecutor communicates with the market supervision department, and the market supervision department hopes to further clarify the issue on the basis and standards for law enforcement.
"Anti-reptiles" is not a reason to infringe consumers' legitimate rights and interests
One side is network information security, and the other side is the consumer's right to know.
What should I do when the two conflicts?
This is a problem to be faced and solved to promote the healthy development of new business formats in the Internet field.
On October 16, 2020, the Beijing Railway Transport Procuratorate conducted a public hearing on the case of "blocked inquiry of qualifications". Administrative agencies and enterprises involved in the case were invited to participate in the hearing. Experts in related fields, deputies to the National People's Congress, and people's supervisors acted as hearing members.
At the hearing, the person in charge of the platform involved explained that the purpose of setting up query barriers is to maintain the security of the operator’s qualification information and prevent others from using "crawler" technology to crawl; multiple queries triggered the "anti-crawler" technology, resulting in Cannot query again within a certain period of time.
The platform can meet the requirements of the regulatory authorities to check the qualifications by opening the whitelist.
"The existing qualification query barriers are misjudgments caused by immature technology, which results in consumers not being able to fully understand license information." A relevant person from the market supervision department said that in response to the platform setting query barriers, how to identify disputes in law enforcement practice Big.
One opinion is that the establishment of barriers violates the obligation of publicity and should be punished.
Another opinion is that just by setting up barriers to inquiry, it is deemed that it has not been publicized and is improper.
In response, Liu Xiaochun, executive director of the Internet Rule of Law Research Center of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out in the hearing opinion: “Publicity must ensure that consumers’ right to know can be substantially protected. Companies can set up more effective'anti-reptiles' strategies.” Beijing Guardian Wei Aimin, director of Xian Law Firm, believes: “Technical issues cannot constitute an obstacle to law enforcement by relevant administrative departments. It should be determined that enterprises have not fulfilled their publicity responsibilities.” “Internet companies should have stronger social responsibilities. Administrative agencies should strictly enforce the law in law enforcement. , We must also pay attention to the realization of the basic values of the law."
Zhao Xianwei, Director of the Procuratorial Technology Management Division of the Procuratorial Technology Information Research Center of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, gave his views from the perspective of technological development.
He believes that the "anti-crawler" strategy is not a reason for infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Companies can consider setting up complex verification codes (or mobile phone verification codes), improving the functions of big data algorithms, and setting up blacklists to improve the discrimination between real consumers and consumers. The technical capabilities of the "data crawler robot" balance the relationship between consumer rights and system security.
The procuratorate adopted the opinions of the hearing officers and suggested that the relevant administrative departments supervise and urge the enterprises involved in the case to carry out technical rectification.
The platform companies involved in the case finally ensured the legitimate inquiry needs of consumers by upgrading their products.
Our reporter Lu Yue