Acting in good faith key to e-business

A 26-year-old woman receives goods she bought online in Dalian, Liaoning province. Young adults are the biggest spenders on the Web. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A man in xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, who found it difficult to assemble a bed he had bought online and discovered poor-quality wood was used, posted a negative review about the e-shop. Less than 30 minutes later, he had received 8,294 spam text messages along with unsolicited phone calls, he told the media. The Prosecutorial Daily comments:

It is natural for customers to post online reviews of the products and services they pay for. But it has become common for shops to retaliate against poor reviews in such a way. Three things could be contributing to such a development:

First, the online platform does not properly manage its online retailers, or rather than regulating the online-shops, the e-commerce platform connives with the misbehavior of the retailers.

The providers of the online platforms also have a duty to protect the rights of customers, and they are responsible for regulating the activities on their platforms.

Second, the law enforcers do not strictly punish the retailers for their malicious response even though there are laws governing e-commerce activities. Law enforcers seldom deal with complaints or appeals from dissatisfied online shoppers.

Third, customers in general are responsible for providing genuine feedback, and not trying to use a poor review as a way to extort free products or upgrades form retailers.