Opinions on E-Commerce’s Unauthorized Change to Consumers’ Comments

Case: A noted Chinese E-commerce website is recently charged with unauthorized modification to customer’s comments on the product sold.(note: the link is in Chinese) A newly bought mobile phone was found used by a consumer from Hangzhou City, who afterwards gave a poor comment on the product. Surprisingly to him, his comment was then changed to satisfy one a month later, for this the consumer only got the reply from the website that it’s a misoperation. Actually, it’s not an individual case in recent. (the image is the logo of 360buy.com, a main B2C website in China)

Comments by consumers are prominent to e-commerce website, which however face obvious or stealing modification by the website. And in addition to the aforesaid case, comments on Taobao.com also face the same problem. The business model of Taobao.com is much like that of eBay, in which a poor comment may rouse fierce response by the store runner, either by carrot or stick, to demand the comment erasure or change; otherwise some may even harass the consumer. By the news report, it even gives birth to a new industry to make living on blackmailing the runner with the threat of poor comment.

But Taobao.com is a platform website after all, and consumers’ comments will only influence the stores with Taobao less cares about the change on it.While the change on comments is not essential to Taobao.com. But then again, even the consumer of Taobao.com change their comments after the threat or harassment by the website, such change is made by themselves, while those modification made on B2C websites, who process the whole procedure of purchase, supply, sale and transportation and may change any comments on their own, could be kind of fraudulence to the consumer and is suspected to be illegal. And our opinions are as follows:

I. The unauthorized change on comments are kind of fraudulence to the consumer

As provided in the Consumer Interests Protection Law, the operator shall provide consumers with the true and real information on the product or services, and no false propaganda arousing misunderstanding shall hereby be made.

On B2C websites, the previous comments are the important reference by the coming consumer when deciding the buying the product. A high rate of good comment plays a prominent role in product propaganda. Therefore, by the aforesaid regulations, any unauthorized modification on consumer comments may constitute fraudulent propaganda. And once the consumer is cheated by the business then, they could choose to make complaints to the organization on the consumers’ interest protection (the “organization”).

II. The unauthorized change on comments may constitute un-fair competition

According to the Anti Unfair Competition Law, an operator may not use advertisements or other means to give false, misleading publicity as to the quality, composition, performance, use, manufacturer, useful life, origin, etc. , of the goods. And as discussed above, the unauthorized comment change could constitute false publicity, meanwhile, such changes is the commercial conduct against good faith and immoral, which could also be regulated by the articles in Anti Unfair Competition Law that an operator shall, in transactions in the market, follow the principle of voluntariness, equality, fairness, honesty and credibility, and observe generally recognized business ethics.

III. The punishment in law

Although it’s prohibited by law to make the change on the comments when no authorize is granted, the online business men are less feared for little punishment is regulated by law. Just to take the Consumer Interest Protection Law as the instance, the consumer is not likely to make a report to the Organization when their comments are changed, for they only take measures to guard their interests when defects on the product quality. On the other hand, by the Anti Unfair Competition Law, the change on the comments is too light to agitate the industry in lawsuits, though the competition among e-commerce runners is fierce.

Therefore, the administrative punishment plays a meaningful role in combat the unauthorized change to the comment. According to the Consumers Interests Protection Law, for the false publicity, it shall be “imposed a fine at an amount equivalent to one to five times the amount of their illegal earnings” or “where there are no illegal earnings, a fine of up to 10,000 yuan shall be imposed.” And the fine imposed by Anti Unfair Competition Law on false publicity is “more than 10, 000 yuan (RMB) and less than 200, 000 yuan (RMB)”.

Finally, either the website of B2C or C2C, a good faith shall be the basis of their operation, and the fraudulence with comments change or modification could not help to establish their reputation among the consumers.

Author: Mr. You Yunting
Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Bridge IP Law Commentary
Partner & Attorney-at-law of Shanghai DeBund Law Offices
Email: Bridge@chinaiplawyer.com, Tel: 8621-5213-4900,
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Bridge IP Law Commentary is a website focus on the introduction of commercial laws in China, especially the intellectual property laws. All the posts here are our original works. And all news or cases referred here are from public reports, and our comments or analysis are of due diligence, neutrality and impartiality, representing our own opinions only and are our original works. You may contact us shall you have any opinions or suggestions.

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