On October 19, Zhejiang Province released an analysis of complaints received in the third quarter of 2020, naming and criticizing online booking platforms such as Flying Pig and Meituan for failing to deliver promised discounts, false propaganda, difficulty in returning bookings, and big data killing.
The first three are not new to users who regularly use these two apps, and these are all problems on the table. Only big data killing is relatively more subtle, and even for old users, it’s sometimes hard to find out if they’ve been screwed.
If big data is distorted and used badly, that’s a really unfortunate thing.
01
It’s because I know you.
In the era of big data, many data algorithms can infer user preferences, and how to make use of data algorithms to give users a better experience is what many platforms have been trying to do. However, many platforms, including Meituan, will also use big data algorithms to kill the game.
In the past two years, consumers have gradually discovered something fishy when shopping on e-commerce platforms. For the same item, the account for frequent shoppers is more expensive than the new account. As similar phenomena are increasingly being discovered on major platforms, big data to kill familiarity has finally surfaced.
The so-called kill cook, is to use the trust of acquaintances ruthlessly slaughter acquaintances a sum. In the age of the Internet, the scenario of killing familiarity is more concentrated in the online. Your information, behavior and habits are mastered by the platform big data, and dependence on them, not slaughter you slaughter who?
So what kind of people would be defined as acquaintances in the system? The so-called frequent customers, in fact, are people with a higher willingness to consume, they are likely to be “lucky” to be allocated to higher prices and lower offers, members of major platforms are the first to bear the brunt.
For example, Flying Pig can determine through big data whether you are rich, take the plane is urgent or not, and then give you a price through analysis. Judging that you are rich people will give a high price, judging that you are not rich people will give a normal price, this is big data!
From movie tickets, cabs, wine tours to takeaways, the phenomenon of “different prices for the same goods” can occur. In March last year, Beijing Consumer Federation did a survey, nearly 90% of the respondents believe that the phenomenon of big data to kill familiarity is widespread, 56.92% of the respondents said they have been big data to kill the experience.
Open a social networking software at random, search for the word kill, we can find the phenomenon of kill almost everywhere, including clothing, food, housing, transportation and other aspects of the phenomenon.
The platform, without the user’s knowledge, takes advantage of technology to engage in price differences and even price discrimination, which has been suspected of consumer deception and fraud.
02
Meituan is a typical example of “killing the cooked”?
Jack Ma once said that Alibaba is essentially a data company: the purpose of Taobao is not to sell goods, but to get all the retail data and manufacturing data; the purpose of logistics is not to deliver parcels, but to combine all these data together.
The development of the Internet economy cannot be separated from the support of big data. However, due to the increasing prominence of personal information security issues, public opinion is also largely lopsided at present, and platform parties are under great pressure on the boundaries of responsibility for personal information security.
For the past three years, Meituan has been exposed to the phenomenon of big data killing, but it has been repeatedly banned. As early as 2018, Xinhua News Agency had revealed the phenomenon of the existence of Meituan hotels with different accounts and different prices; in the big data killing storm in 2019, the Science and Technology Daily named Meituan for the existence of big data killing phenomenon. Until now, big data killing is still prevalent in Meituan hotels, tourism and other platforms.
Such as a couple in the same room with the same brand of two mobile phones, connected to the same Wifi after opening the Meituan App, query the same time and the same hotel price, found that the same room minimum price difference of more than 40 yuan, and contrasted several found that the price generally difference of 20-30 yuan.
In fact, if not carefully compared, these details are difficult to find. In essence, big data killing is mainly through the platform to collect a huge amount of user information and data, accurate identification of users, the willingness to spend, high spending power to display higher prices, to earn more profits.
Generally speaking, the more you buy the more preferential prices tend to be more, or equally regardless of new and old customers are uniformly preferential prices. But this is not necessarily the case in the age of big data. For example, the more people who don’t use Meituan, the higher the coupon amount tends to be.
In fact, whether it is on Hungry or on Meituan, price-sensitive users will find that after purchasing a membership compared to before the opening of the membership, the full discount is lower, and the actual order price after using the membership bonus is the same or even higher than the price for ordinary users.
As far as the takeaway business is concerned, Meituan’s growth trend is gradually slowing down, and because of the high introduction of joint addresses of multiple food and beverage merchants, it is also difficult to make an impact on merchant commissions. As a result, Meituan can only find ways to get businesses to invest more in advertising to secure orders, while raising prices for users, which drives the “one-customer-one-price” routine.
03
Where are the boundaries of the Platform’s responsibilities?
On the one hand, they are full of anxiety about the security of their personal information, and on the other hand, they want to get the most cost-effective or even free services.
If consumers’ expectations of privacy are not met, this will directly affect the acquisition and use of personal information by companies in the long run. Platforms should prioritize users’ perceptions of privacy and meet their reasonable expectations.
Since April 2018, the consumer complaint platform “black cat complaints” on the big data to kill the complaint rose significantly, as of September 21, has been as many as 456, of which the travel and e-commerce category of the largest number of complaints. “Thousands of people thousands of prices” strategy, spread to all aspects of the kill algorithm also occupy our daily life.
Not only the United States group and flying pig, before the drops and Ctrip have appeared to kill the phenomenon, although the respective officials strongly deny the existence of similar incidents. It’s a common phenomenon in the internet age that big data killing is not just a problem for any one company. It’s just that as the rules become more transparent and simplified, the phenomenon will eventually fade away.
When you shop in a brick-and-mortar store, everyone can see the uniform price tag next to the product. But when shopping on e-commerce platforms, we can only see the price displayed on our own phone screens. The existence of information asymmetry happens to facilitate businesses to set different prices for different users’ consumption habits, which is the root cause of big data killing.
But when several people are comparing prices together, the platform is easily exposed. Of the various complaint samples, about half of them found evidence of big data killing by comparing the price differences between different accounts.
Some users wrote in their complaints: “I have been using a certain platform for more than three years and have been using it to book hotels, train tickets and airline tickets. However, when I booked the same hotel, the total amount I had to pay was much higher than his. It turns out I’ve been spending more money on behalf of my membership for years.”
Internet companies hold a vast number of users’ usage data, they are undoubtedly the first object to assume responsibility for protecting user data. But where exactly is the boundary of corporate responsibility?
04
concluding remarks
What do we do when faced with the phenomenon of big data killing in our daily lives? If there is a price difference for the same product, we should contact the platform merchants in advance to understand the real situation, and promptly retain and screenshot the relevant online payment vouchers for product consumption, and complain to the relevant departments to prepare for the follow-up to make up for the difference in price.
From October 1, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the Interim Regulations on the Management of Online Tourism Business Services, which clearly requires online tourism enterprises not to abuse big data analysis to violate the legitimate rights and interests of travelers, and violators will be fined up to 500,000 yuan.
Hopefully, in the future, big data technology will develop in a positive direction, rather than becoming an accomplice to platform killers.
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