Why does the Sydney Network APP cause doubts
Search screenshot of the Sydney Net App page. Data picture
With the help of forwarding and apprentice promotion, Sydney.com has gained many users, but this promotion model and false advertisements on the platform have also put Sydney.com at many legal risks
Law Weekend Intern Reporter Yu Weili
Forward news links can be rewarded. Recommending others to register will not only have a one-time reward, but also continuously get commissions based on the performance of the "apprentice"... Nowadays, more and more money-making information reading applications such as Qutoutiao and Huitoutiao are appearing in the market. They lock in netizens who have a lot of free time and attract a large number of users with various reward systems.
There is an app called "Snowy Li.com" among the "leading players", which also brings questions to Sydney.com: Is its apprenticeship model a pyramid scheme, and how to ensure the source of its rewards? How will the platform develop in the future?
Earn 0.1 yuan per click and support unlimited forwarding
According to the mobile phone part-time job task platform China Hand-earning Network, Xueli.com is a mobile phone money-making app that was officially launched on June 3, 2017. According to customer service, its number of users has exceeded 10,000.
The reporter opened the Sydney Net App and the first thing he saw was four major sections: "Forwarding Cumulative Income", "Invite Income", "Appointment Reward", and "Balance".
The app comes with multiple video tutorials, mainly focusing on "article forwarding", and claims that "you can make a lot of money by just one WeChat or one mobile phone." In the "Forwarding and Making Money" section, the types of articles shared by the platform are similar to those of general news and information software, including 17 columns such as society, entertainment, and finance. According to the platform, users can freely choose the forwarded information categories based on their own areas of concern to quickly increase their income.
According to the money-making model rules provided by the homepage of the Sydney App, every time a user forwards an article, as long as it is a valid click (the first click made by other users with different IP addresses within 24 hours), each click is 0.1 yuan per article, and the platform supports unlimited forwarding.
The reporter found that as long as you open the Sydney Net App, an announcement will pop up constantly, prompting the platform to launch an event every two days. During the event, users will be read and will be calculated at 0.15 yuan per article. The first balance will be withdrawn by over 5 yuan. Then, the withdrawal will be made on the same day as the withdrawal starts from 10 yuan (through WeChat and Alipay).
On May 16, the reporter registered his Sydney Network account and randomly selected an article through the "Forwarding Make Money" section to share it with his friends. After a while, 1.30 yuan of the platform's "Cumulative Revenue for Forwarding" was arrived (13 times). Click "View Details" to view the clicked time and income amount corresponding to each forwarded article..
Advisor "works" and the master makes money easily
The reporter found that on Sydney.com, in addition to forwarding articles to make profits, users can also get commissions by inviting friends to register (referred to as "apprenticeship"). The "Invite Friends" section on the platform shows that users can successfully share by sending it to WeChat friends or friends by directly "sharing button", or copying the promotion link or QR code given by the platform. Each person who registers through the link becomes the "apprentice" of the link sender.
Snowy Li.com QQ customer service told reporters that the apprenticeship mode is divided into two levels of offline rewards: one is that the apprentice (first-level apprentice) obtained directly by the user, which can receive a 20% commission; the other is that the apprentice (second-level apprentice) invited by the apprentice (second-level apprentice) can receive a 10% commission.
"No matter what form the user promotes, as long as the friend is invited to register successfully, the system will automatically track and count the commission. The more apprentices you invite, the more you will earn." The customer service said.
Zou Congyun (pseudonym) began to come into contact with Sydney.com in early May, mainly relying on developing apprentices to make money. She told reporters that many people think that this model does not require capital investment and money is quickly generated, so the number of friends accepting her invitation continues to increase. However, she soon discovered that most people will not browse information after registering, so she will not get any profit (according to the forwarding rules of Sydney.com, simply forwarding articles will not make any profit, and friends will only get profit after clicking).
Later, she established multiple WeChat groups, exchanged experiences with her apprentices every day, and improved their enthusiasm for "work". So far, she has developed more than 20 conscientious apprentices, so she doesn't need to work at all. She just needs to wait for her apprentices to work and get money by herself.
"So far, I have earned more than 800 yuan in 4 days. If this continues, I am quite optimistic. I also heard that it is not a problem for those who do well to do a few thousand yuan a day and a monthly salary of over 10,000 yuan." Zou Congyun is quite optimistic about her profit prospects for taking apprentices online on Sydney.
The reporter noticed that the homepage of the Sydney App also prompted that the platform has specially established a QQ group for user consultation and communication. The reporter joined the group and found that the group members had reached more than 800, and many users shared their "business information" and "performance" in the group. While encouraging users to develop offline, many administrators also guide users how to maintain offline.
The apprentice acquisition model has caused controversy in pyramid schemes
This business model of earning commissions by developing multi-level apprentices has quickly promoted Sydney.com among users, but it has also aroused doubts about pyramid schemes from the outside world. In this regard, Wu Changhai, director of the Internet Economic Research Center of the Institute of Capital Finance of China University of Political Science and Law, believes that the practice of making profits by forwarding articles and publishing advertisements is essentially to obtain advertising revenue from advertisers, not to obtain the principal and membership fees of offline or members. therefore, the platform's behavior does not constitute a pyramid scheme, but its essence is a distribution system.
Zhao Zhanling, deputy director of Beijing Zhilin Law Firm, believes that the behavior of encouraging forwarding of information through rewards (there are many advertisements attached to the information after it) to gain more attention from users. From the current perspective, there is still a market, and there is no problem with users' benefits through forwarding advertisements. The platform's apprentice model is closer to the pyramid scheme model. However, since users do not need to pay fees and have no threshold for participating in forwarding, it is difficult to make a clear judgment based on the current Regulations on the pyramid scheme prohibition. Whether it constitutes a pyramid scheme still needs to be determined by the industrial and commercial departments.
Qiu Baochang, president of the E-Commerce Rule of Law Research Association of Beijing Law Society, introduced that pyramid schemes are illegal acts by organizers to calculate and pay remuneration for the developed personnel based on the number or performance of the directly or indirectly developed personnel, or require the developed personnel to obtain qualifications on the condition of paying a certain fee.
He believes that the platform forwarding profits and apprenticeship mode are not normal trading methods, and are suspected of pyramid schemes. The essence of pyramid schemes is a "Ponzi scheme", that is, the money from later generations is paid to the previous person's income. However, in the Sydney Net model, the money from later generations is exchanged for the labor of forwarding articles, and is manifested in the form of remuneration paid by the advertiser.
Ma Ce, co-founder of Zhejiang Kenting Law Firm, also believes that the platform's apprenticeship model is difficult to get rid of the suspicion of pyramid schemes: after all, different levels are set through the platform, and the distribution results of higher and lower levels are basically in line with the team's compensation model.
However, in the eyes of the customer service staff of Sydney.com, this is a healthy and sustainable model: advertisers place advertisements on the platform to win benefits; users share articles with high clicks, and the platform's advertising revenue will be high; the platform uses part of the advertising revenue to share with users, so users generate profits when sharing articles.
In response to the external pyramid scheme doubts, the relevant person in charge of Sydney.com told the reporter of Legal Weekly that the main basis for judging whether it constitutes a pyramid scheme is whether the subject charges the user. "The platform does not charge users a penny. Users only need to have a mobile phone and WeChat to join this project. It has zero investment and therefore does not constitute a pyramid scheme."
False advertisements are implanted in forwarding articles
In the process of investigating the business model of Sydney.com, the reporter found that most of the articles shared by the platform had advertisements embedded. One of the articles titled "The latest height standard table for boys and girls aged 1-18, has your child met the standard?" was flooded with many advertisements.
On May 7, the reporter randomly clicked on one of the advertisements, titled "Beijing Tongrentang 300-year anti-glycemic prescriptions announced, caring for 114 million diabetes patients across the country". The article describes the harm of diabetes to patients' bodies in detail, and introduces a product of "Tongrentang Brand Gourd Gen Yam Capsules".
Thereafter, the reporter passed the Jiangsu Provincial Food and Drug SupervisionThe official website of the Administration found that as early as December 28, 2017, the Jiangsu Provincial Food and Drug Administration issued a suspension of sales announcement on the "Tongrentang Pai Gegen Yam Capsules".
The announcement clearly states that the illegal advertisement of "Tongrentang Brand Gureng Yam Capsules" exaggerates the functions of health foods and false propaganda, and the circumstances are relatively serious, seriously deceiving and misleading consumers, and the sales suspension measures will be taken in Jiangsu Province.
Wu Changhai introduced that according to Article 3 of the "Interim Measures for the Management of Internet Advertising" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures") issued by the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce in 2016, any commercial advertisements that directly or indirectly promote goods or services through Internet media such as websites, web pages, Internet applications, etc., are Internet advertisements. Therefore, Sydney.com promotes it by rewarding users with articles attached to advertisements, and its nature is also an Internet advertisement.
"The Sydney Network platform is the operator of Internet advertising. Those forwarding users are publishers of the Internet advertising, and their first- and second-level offline users are also publishers of the advertisement, but these publishers cannot review the authenticity of the Internet advertising. Therefore, this communication model violates the provisions of the Measures." Wu Changhai told the Law Weekend reporter.
Zhao Zhanling has a different view on this. He believes that Sydney.com is both an advertisement operator and a publisher, and the forwarded user does not belong to the publisher of the advertisement. According to the Advertising Law, the publisher of the advertisement shall review the content and authenticity of the advertisement, otherwise he shall bear joint and several liability for losses caused by false advertisements.
Qiu Baochang holds the same view. He introduced that if the platform publishes false advertisements, it will violate the Advertising Law and the Consumer Rights Protection Law, and the relevant competent authorities may impose administrative penalties; and as the forwarder, the user has no obligation to review the advertising content. Unless he knows that the content is a false advertisement, he does not need to bear the responsibility for occasionally forwarding. If he helps the platform forward articles in large quantities, it is actually helping the spread of false advertisements and should also bear the corresponding joint and several legal liability.
On May 14, the reporter contacted the relevant person in charge of Sydney.com about the issue of false advertising. The person in charge said: "The platform and advertisers have signed contracts, and advertisers have also provided all qualifications for the product."
When the reporter told the other party that the product had been suspended from sales by the Jiangsu Provincial Food and Drug Administration on the grounds of false publicity in 2017, the person in charge said: "We have strictly registered and reviewed each product, and the qualifications of the product itself are fine. If users find that the advertisement exaggerates the product's efficacy, they can send the link to us. We will go offline immediately after verification and reserve the right to pursue the advertiser's responsibility.
On May 21, when the reporter opened the link again, he found that the advertisement on his page had been removed from the shelves.
