文章大意:本文为一篇说明文。文章主要介绍了数据垄断导致不同用户在打车、购物等场景享受不同待遇,并引发平台间链接封锁等问题,侵犯消费者权益。中国政府正加强对垄断和不正当市场行为的监管,推动平台间互联互通,同时鼓励企业提升数据加密技术,在保护个人信息与实现平台间互联间寻求平衡。
My generation — people born after 1990 — are accustomed to “all-in-platform” life, where we use mobile apps of different platforms to do almost everything in life.
For instance, I ordered a cup of coffee on Monday using an online delivery app. Then, I called a taxi by tapping on the app of a ride-booking service. Next, I bought some necessities on shopping platform Taobao. That done, I moved on to various other online destinations to get my daily fix of music, reading, social networking and so forth.
Platforms now play an increasingly important role in almost all aspects of day -to-day life, not just in economic and political processes. Consumption and social interaction are closely linked to platforms now.
But, I began to get confused recently. I thought I was being treated differently. My friend and I called a taxi at the same time on a ride-hailing platform(打车平台) and found that for the same destination, the prices were different. The price indicated on my phone was higher. One of the potential reasons could have been that I regularly use the ride-hailing platform and have a higher ranking while my friend doesn’t use it that often. So, the ride-hailing platform offers discounts to newbies like her, to attract and have such customers.
China’s latest efforts in regulating monopolistic or improper market behavior are of great significance in protecting consumers’ lawful rights.
“The essence of platform-based monopoly(垄断) is that a large number of users are gathered on only a select few platform companies, leading to uneven data gathering different platforms. But in China some platforms use their own data and traffic (流量) to expand capital in a disorderly way,” said Wang Yong, deputy director of the Institute of Economics at Tsinghua University.
Data monopoly also brought another inconvenience for consumers — platforms block links to each other. For instance, link to WeChat Pay of Tencent is not available on Alibaba’s Taobao while there is no Alipay link on JD app’s payment options.
Last year, Meituan was charged with preventing customers from using Alipay as a payment option on Meituan apps and platforms.
In July, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched a six-month special rectification (专项治理) for the internet industry, asking platform operators to stop blocking each other’s link.
“More efforts should also be made to strike a good balance between personal information protection and interconnectivity between platforms. Companies are being encouraged to further develop data encryption (加密) technology so that the data are available but not visible.”
8. What is the function of Para.2?
A.To introduce the topic. | B.To illustrate the author’s statement. |
C.To arouse readers’ interest. | D.To show off the author’s life. |
9. What is the main idea of Para.4?
A.The author and his friend were treated differently by taxi drivers. |
B.The author encountered so called “big data price discrimination”. |
C.Due to the author’s higher ranking, the platform offered him a cheaper price. |
D.The ride-hailing platform offers discounts to regular customers. |
10. What is the author’s attitude towards data monopoly?
A.Indifferent. | B.Approving. | C.Critical. | D.Grateful. |
11. What does the passage focus on?
A.Data monopolies and the inconvenience they bring to mobile app life. |
B.Mobile apps have greatly changed our lives. |
C.How to protect personal information on mobile apps. |
D.Platforms have impacted every aspect of our daily lives. |