Original title: Promoting the healthy development of online auction norms
Recently, the General Administration of Market Supervision, the Ministry of Commerce and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Standardized and Healthy Development of Online Auction. This is the first normative document in the field of online auction, which fills the institutional gap of online auction management and is of great significance for promoting the sustainable and healthy development of online auction industry.
Online auction is a trading method based on the Internet platform for online bidding, which is obtained by the higher bidder. It has the characteristics of spanning time and space, wide participation, convenient trading, and easy to clinch a deal. Over the years, new forms such as "live auction" and "online auction" have emerged, ranging from vehicles, real estate, stocks to mobile phone numbers, game cards, and hand-operated auctions. By 2023, the annual transaction scale of various online auctions has exceeded one trillion yuan, which plays an important role in revitalizing stock assets, improving the efficiency of factor allocation, improving the modern circulation system, and has a positive impact on stabilizing growth, promoting consumption, and expanding employment.
However, in online auctions, consumers often can only understand the auction products through pictures and words, which also creates more prominent risks in auction display, quality inspection, participation in bidding, delivery of goods and other links. For example, some "licensed but unlicensed" and "unlicensed but unlicensed" auction of cultural relics without authorization. Consumers once snapped up vases for 1 yuan, but the payment was 9999 yuan per second; Some disclosed information is not comprehensive, hidden defects are difficult to check, and fraud such as shoddy goods and false price is common; Others use the anonymity of online auctions to invite employees to act as "trust", guide and raise the bidding price, which seriously infringes the legitimate rights and interests of consumers
In sorting out relevant laws and regulations, there are no clear provisions on online auction, which can easily turn online auction into a blind spot of supervision. The biggest highlight of the Guiding Opinions this time is to clearly adhere to the consistency of the online and offline auction supervision system for the first time. According to the existing laws and regulations, unfair competition, infringement of consumer rights and interests, illegal advertising and other acts in online trading activities naturally fall within the scope of market supervision; As the competent department of e-commerce, the commercial department should issue the approval certificate of auction operation according to the Auction Law; If the auction of cultural relics is involved, the auction license of cultural relics shall be obtained and put on record.
How to effectively implement supervision? Network platform is crucial. As a "middleman" linking operators and consumers, the online platform not only plays a matchmaking role, but also has the dual attributes of "market" and "enterprise". It is the nearest to transactions and data, and is an important participant in promoting the healthy development of online auction norms. This time, the Guiding Opinions compacted the main responsibilities of the platform and emphasized the need to strengthen the internal governance of the platform. The main responsibilities of online auction platform operators have been defined from the provision of performing the obligations of verification and registration of online auction operator information within the platform to specifying the legal disposal and reporting responsibilities of illegal auction information.
Let innovation and norms interact well is our goal. From the perspective of the framework of the Guiding Opinions, while making some normative requirements, it proposes to encourage the innovative development of the online auction market, including model innovation, technological innovation, service innovation, and business type innovation. This is a pragmatic approach. The purpose of both innovative applications and standardized supervision is to support the healthy and orderly development of online auctions on the right track and better serve the economic and social development. （ Wang Qingfeng ）
