Frequent occurrence of "big data to kill maturity" problem triggered the attention of the China Consumers Association (CCA), which convened a symposium on the system of algorithms and consumer protection in the field of network consumption on January 7, calling on network operators to adhere to fairness and impartiality in the application of algorithms. The Chinese Consumers Association held a forum on "Algorithmic Laws and Consumer Protection in the Field of Online Consumption" on January 7, calling on online operators to be fair and impartial in their algorithmic applications, opposing the use of consumers' personal data to implement price discrimination, and suggesting that the relevant provisions on algorithmic applications be added to the Personal Information Protection Law, the Anti-Monopoly Law and other relevant laws.
The issue of "big data kills maturity" has attracted the attention of regulators. Nandu reporter combed through found that in 2020, there have been a number of departments have issued relevant regulations or statements, the platform enterprise "big data kill familiar" regulation.
August 31, 2020, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the Interim Provisions for the Administration of Online Tourism Business Services, the first time for the online tourism sector to make clear regulatory provisions. In response to the highly controversial issue of "big data killing maturity", Article 15 of the Interim Provisions clearly stipulates that online tourism operators shall not misuse technical means such as big data analysis to set unfair trading conditions based on travelers' consumption records, travel preferences, etc., violating the legitimate rights and interests of travelers. The Interim Provisions were implemented on October 1 of the same year.
On November 10, 2020, the General Administration of Market Supervision issued the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines on the Platform Economy Sector (Draft for Public Comments), which prohibits operators in the platform economy sector with a dominant position in the market from abusing their dominant position in the market and applying differential treatment to trading counterparts with the same trading conditions without justifiable reasons to exclude or restrict market competition.
An expert told the Nandu reporter that this provision is a response to the "big data to kill maturity" problem. For example, the first paragraph of Article 17 refers to "based on big data and algorithms, according to the payment ability of the counterparty to the transaction, consumption preferences, habits of use, etc., the implementation of differentiated transaction prices or transaction conditions", referring to the platform based on the "user profile" to implement price discrimination.
The CCA suggests that the relevant laws increase the application of algorithms
The CCA said that some platforms provide products or services by means of big data and artificial intelligence, and that there are big data to kill familiarization, online search bidding ranking recommendations, brush positive reviews and hidden bad reviews to make the evaluation results show distortion and other violations of consumer rights and interests. The core behind it is the application of algorithmic technology by Internet platforms, such as recommendation algorithms, price algorithms, evaluation algorithms and so on.
The CCA pointed out that some operators use algorithms to engage in price discrimination, including setting different prices for new and old users, with member users instead being more expensive than ordinary users; setting different prices for consumers in different regions; users who browse the page multiple times may face price increases; and utilizing complicated promotional rules and algorithms to implement price-confusing settings to attract consumers who have difficulty calculating the true price. "These types of algorithms cause selective targeting harm."