CCTV News: Recently, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the first market supervision industry standard "Natural Person Online Store Management Standards" (hereinafter referred to as "Management Standards"). The relevant person in charge of the Internet Supervision Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation answered reporters' questions on issues related to the "Management Specifications".

1. What is the background and significance of the issuance of the "Management Specifications"?

Operators on the online trading platform include enterprises, farmers' professional cooperatives, individual business owners and other business entities that handle registration, as well as natural person entities that sell self-produced agricultural and sideline products, family handicraft products, or engage in convenient labor services, sporadic small transactions and other types of business activities (hereinafter collectively referred to as natural person online stores). At present, natural person online stores account for about 57% of the total number of operators on the platform, and are an important part of online transaction operators. The massive natural person online stores are not only an important subject to active platform economy, but also an important source for cultivating new business entities, and play an important role in stabilizing growth, promoting consumption, ensuring employment, and benefiting people's livelihood. However, the standards for the management of natural person online stores by various online trading platforms are not unified. Natural person online stores are of mixed quality and mixed quality, which is a severely affected area for infringement, counterfeiting, false propaganda and other problems. These problems are not conducive to the further development and growth of natural person online stores, nor are they conducive to the protection of consumer rights, and affect the high-quality development of the platform economy.

The "Management Specifications" fills the gap in the legal system and rules of the management of natural person online stores. In the form of recommended standards, it promotes the construction of a "four unified" management framework for natural person online stores that "unified entry standards, unified operation rules, unified exit mechanisms, and unified data reporting standards" for natural person online stores, realizes the full process and full chain specification of natural person online stores "from birth to death" and guides the healthy and standardized development of natural person online stores.

2. What is the main content of "Management Specifications"?

The "Management Specifications" has eight chapters and four appendices, which stipulate the requirements for online trading platform operators to manage natural person online stores such as entry, operation, exit and data reporting.

The first is to unify the entry standards. During the entry process, in accordance with the principle of minimum necessity, the scope of information collected by the operator of the online trading platform when the natural person online store is on the platform is clarified to facilitate market access for the natural person online store.

The second is to unify operational rules. During the operation stage, clarify the management requirements of online trading platform operators for natural person online store operation inspection, online store display, information disclosure, consumer complaints, compliance management, rights relief, etc., and urge natural person online stores to operate in accordance with the law. Among them, from the perspective of stabilizing the subject and stabilizing employment, we innovatively propose rights relief/rights protection assistance, positive credit incentives and other contents.

The third is a unified exit mechanism. During the exit process, we will refine and clarify the legal obligations of natural person online store information disclosure, and emphasize the protection of consumers' legitimate rights and interests.

The fourth is to unify the data reporting standards. Clarify the requirements for the information record preservation of natural person online stores by online trading platform operators and the requirements for submitting data to market supervision departments, laying the data foundation for the intelligent supervision of online trading.

3. Will the "Management Specifications" increase the burden on platform companies and natural person online stores?

The "Management Standards" adhere to the principle of equal importance to development and norms, follow market laws, respect the characteristics of the platform economy and the independent operating rights of business entities, and focus on key issues in the supervision and development of natural person online stores. On the one hand, it implements and refines the "E-Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China" and "Internet Transaction Supervision and Administration Measures" and other relevant laws, regulations and rules to enhance the operability of relevant legal rules; on the other hand, it summarizes and refines the effective platform agreement rules and management measures of online trading platform operators for the management of natural person online stores, and elevates them to standards to improve the scientific and standardized level of online transaction supervision.

The "Management Standards" are voluntary and recommended industry standards and have not added mandatory obligations. They are conducive to guiding online trading platform companies to actively fulfill their main responsibilities and improve the management level of natural person online stores on the platform; they are conducive to urging natural person online stores to operate in compliance and achieve healthy and standardized development; they are conducive to standardizing the order of the online trading market, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and related entities, and promoting the innovative development of the platform economy.