This year’s consumer rights broadcast on 15 March exposed problems in the information and communications sector that have long plagued users: apps that lure people into downloading malware under the promise of free WiFi, personal data leaks that turn into a stream of nuisance calls, app stores that force bundled downloads of unknown software.
On 16 March the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology moved against the firms involved, pulling the apps and penalising the companies.
Mobile phones now carry daily life and apps have become necessities. The 49th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China puts the number of internet users at 1.032 billion as of December 2021, a penetration rate of 73.0%, with 99.7% of them going online by phone. Against that, the app ecosystem draws heavy criticism: connecting to free WiFi and finding an unfamiliar app installed, browsing a page and then receiving nuisance calls, and developers collecting beyond the scope of what a service needs and misusing what they collect.
Keeping the online space clean and protecting users’ rights takes regulation, industry self-discipline and user awareness together.
What the regulator is doing
2021 brought the Data Security Law and the Personal Information Protection Law, which put a legal lock on personal data. To refine the requirements, the ministry drafted interim provisions on personal information protection in mobile internet applications and opened them for public comment. On the practice of luring users into bundled installs, its provisions on order in the internet information service market already require that where terminal software bundles other software, the user must be told clearly, must choose for themselves whether to install or use it, and must be given a separate way to uninstall or close it, with no unreasonable conditions attached.
In 2021 the ministry inspected 2.08 million apps, notified 1,549 that were non-compliant and removed 514 that refused to fix the problems. ‘After several years of concentrated effort the trend is broadly positive and app governance has entered a phase of standardisation and adjustment,’ said Fang Yu, director of the internet law research centre at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. Regulators intend to keep the pressure on, monitor continuously with technical means and make supervision routine.
What it means for developers
For internet companies the message is to put the user at the centre and take social responsibility seriously. Testing how far a service can go in taking advantage of users is a poor long-term strategy; investing in technology, finding new business models and operating within the law is a better one.
For users, the answer is awareness. Faced with requests that collect beyond scope or demand permissions a service does not need, the right move is to decline them.
The wild-growth phase of the internet is over. Regulators, industry and users have to work together to protect the right to know and the right to choose — which is what makes the digital economy something people feel the benefit of.
Republished for information. The original text has not been independently verified and does not necessarily reflect our views.
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