MIIT Identifies 55 Apps That Violated User Rights

On November 3, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued (link in Chinese) a list of 55 apps which were found to have violated users' legal rights. The MIIT requires these companies to rectify their practices within six days.

There are two types of listed companies.

The first category is companies identified explicitly by the MIIT. The listed apps include Tencent news, which has the same owner as WeChat;  Xiaohongshu, a popular social media app; and QQ Music, a widely-used music app in China. There are also searching apps, video streaming apps, and dating apps. These apps were found to deceive, mislead or force users, excessively collect personal information beyond the required scope, and request user permissions in a frequent and excessive manner, among other things.

The other category of listed companies is those reported by information and telecommunication agencies at the provincial level. They were already given a chance to correct wrongdoings but failed to do so. There are 17 of these companies.

These apps are required to fix the problems identified on the list by November 9. Otherwise, they may be removed from app stores.

This is the 11th list of this kind issued in 2021.