What’s up: China’s market regulator has singled out more than 10 internet companies for criticism of unfair competition in the form of fake reviews and other ersatz information designed to gain consumer trust.

According to the list posted on the WeChat public account of the State Administration for Market Regulation, the list of companies named for violations included the application of reviews of Dianping restaurants owned by Meituan, as well as the e-commerce site Tmall. from Alibaba and its rival JD.com.

The message stated that the violators had infringed consumers’ rights to make informed choices and had undermined fair competition and market order.

Background: The latest move is part of a wider crackdown on internet companies by Chinese regulators in an attempt to clean up an industry where practices such as posting bogus reviews and misuse of user data are common, often at to the detriment of consumers.

One of the most important elements of this campaign saw the market regulator crack down on the biggest internet companies for abusing the size of their market to engage in monopolistic behavior.

The biggest action in this campaign came in April when Alibaba was fined a record 18 billion yuan ($ 2.8 billion) for its practice of forcing its e-commerce merchant partners to work exclusively. with it, effectively prohibiting them from simultaneously working with rivals like JD. com or Pindouduo.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of stories related to China for quick news that you can use. To read the full story in Chinese, click here.

Contact reporter Yang Ge ([email protected]) and editor Joshua Dummer ([email protected])

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