Ctrip charges a 100% premium, price discrimination targets VIPs

[2] Compiled from: People's Court Daily
 
Case review
Ms. Hu is a Diamond VIP member of the Ctrip app. In July 2020, as usual, Ms. Hu booked a deluxe lake-view king room at Zhoushan Hilton Hotel through the Ctrip app and paid 2,889 yuan. However, when leaving the hotel, Ms. Hu accidentally discovered that the hotel's actual listed price was only 1,377.63 yuan. Not only did Ms. Hu not enjoy the benefits that a star-level customer should receive, but she also paid twice the room rate.

 
 

Ms. Hu communicated with Ctrip, and Ctrip, citing that it is the platform operator and not the contracting party of the order involved in the case, only refunded part of the price difference.
 
Ms. Hu filed a lawsuit in court against Shanghai Ctrip Business Co., Ltd. for collecting her personal non-essential information, citing reasons such as 'big data discrimination against familiar users,' demanding a refund and triple compensation, and requesting that the Ctrip app add an option to continue using it without agreeing to the 'Service Agreement' and 'Privacy Policy,' in order to prevent the defendant from collecting her personal information and accessing the plaintiff's data.
 
 
[1] Court Opinion
1. About VIP special price
As an intermediary platform, the Ctrip app has an obligation to report the actual value truthfully, which it failed to do. Ctrip promised the plaintiff that Diamond VIP members would enjoy discounted prices, but there were no price monitoring measures in place. It presented the plaintiff with a false price inflated by 100%, failing to fulfill its promise.
 
Moreover, when handling the plaintiff's complaint, Ctrip informed the plaintiff that it was unable to refund the full price difference, but investigation showed that this reason did not match the facts and involved deception. Therefore, the defendant is deemed to have engaged in false advertising, price fraud, and deceptive behavior, and the plaintiff is entitled to a refund and triple compensation.The court orders the defendant, Shanghai Ctrip Business Co., Ltd., to compensate the plaintiff, Ms. Hu, for the difference of 243.37 yuan that Ctrip did not fully refund after the complaint, and three times the difference of 1,511.37 yuan for the hotel booking, totaling 4,777.48 yuan in compensation. 。
 
2. About User Information
The Ctrip APP's 'Privacy Policy' also requires users to authorize Ctrip to automatically collect users' personal information, including log information, device information, software information, and location information, requires users to allow it to use user information for marketing activities and to create personalized recommendations, and also requires users to agree that Ctrip analyzes users' order data to form user profiles so that Ctrip can understand users' preferences.
 
The above information goes beyond the essential information required to place an order and falls under the collection and use of non-essential information. Sharing user information with the defendant's arbitrarily defined affiliated companies and business partners for further commercial use is not only unnecessary but also greatly increases the risk of using users' personal information.
 
The plaintiff, therefore, does not agree that the defendant's current 'Service Agreement' and 'Privacy Policy' are reasonable, and this should be supported.The defendant shall add an option in its Ctrip Travel APP allowing the plaintiff to continue using it without agreeing to the existing 'Service Agreement' and 'Privacy Policy,' or revise the 'Service Agreement' and 'Privacy Policy' of the Ctrip Travel APP for the plaintiff to remove the collection and use of non-essential user information. The revised version must be approved and agreed upon by the court.

 

 
 
[1] The author's perspective
The judgment in this case can be said to be thoroughly gratifying, as it not only effectively amended the 'unfair terms,' but also severely cracked down on the malpractices of apps using 'big data to discriminate against loyal users.' In daily life, many commercial apps require users to generally agree to their so-called 'service agreements' and related 'privacy policies' before downloading and using them. Some of the clauses are unnecessary and harm users' interests, but to use the apps, users can only choose to give consent. This violates the principles of legality, legitimacy, and necessity in the handling of personal information as stipulated by the Civil Code and must be prohibited.
 
Issues such as apps saying 'if you don't give full authorization, you can't use it' and 'big data targeting loyal customers' are matters worth caring about and paying attention to in today's society. This case says no to apps that 'refuse use without full authorization' and eliminates the practice of generally requiring users to authorize, better protecting citizens' personal information.