法律翻译｜APP强迫用户同意《隐私权政策》？杭州互联网法院裁判分析

译者｜孙书朋 西南政法大学硕士

一审｜汪晨涵 复旦大学法律硕士

二审｜田雅琦 外交学院法学硕士

编辑｜许素敏 广州美术学院本科

         余卓妍 西安交通大学本科

An Individual Surnamed Guo (Plaintiff)

v

A Network Ltd. (Defendant) 

郭某某诉某网络有限公司个人信息保护纠纷案

[Case Reference]

【案例索引】

Trial of First Instance: Hangzhou Internet Court No. 5626 [2021], First, Civil Division, HIC, Hangzhou.

一审：杭州互联网法院（2021）浙0192民初5626号

[Basic Facts of the Case]

【案情介绍】

During the process of registering and using an shopping app operated by the Defendant, the Plaintiff found that the Privacy Policy and User Agreement popped up to ask the Plaintiff to accept or dismiss them. If one chose to decline he would not be allowed to use the app any more.

原告郭某某在注册、使用被告公司运营的某购物APP过程中发现，打开案涉APP时，APP会弹窗显示《隐私权政策》《用户协议》等，要求其选择“同意”或“拒绝”，若其选择“拒绝”，则不能继续使用该购物APP。

The plaintiff claims that the Privacy Policy contains the following contents:

a. In order to show you the goods or service that better meets your needs, we will collect and use the browsing and search records, the equipment information, servicelogs and other information authorized by you when your visit to or use of the Taobao website platforms or client side. We will use these pieces of information to predict your preferences through algorithm models, match the goods, services or other information that you may be interested in, and sort the goods, services or other information shown to you according to your clicking, browsing or buying.

b. In order to satisfy meet your diverse needs, we will introduce diversified recommendation technology in the sorting process to expand the recommended content and avoid excessive concentration of the same type of content.

c. We will also push your potentially interested commercials and other information to you based on your preferences on the Taobao app and other third-party apps. Alternatively, we may send you commercial messages.

原告郭某某认为《隐私权政策》中含有以下内容：“为向您展示更契合您需求的商品或服务信息，我们会收集和使用您在访问或使用淘宝平台网站或客户端时的浏览、搜索记录及设备信息、服务日志信息，以及其他取得您授权的信息，通过算法模型预测您的偏好特征，匹配您可能感兴趣的商品、服务或其他信息，并根据您点击、浏览或购买的情况，对向您展示的商品、服务或其他信息进行排序。为满足您的多元需求，我们会在排序过程中引入多样化推荐技术，拓展推荐的内容，避免同类型内容过度集中。我们也会基于您的偏好特征在淘宝及其他第三方应用程序向您推送您可能感兴趣的商业广告及其他信息，或者向您发送商业性短信息”。

（图片源于网络）

The Plaintiff argues that the above items violate the Article 16 and Article 24 of Personal Information Protection Act, thus infringing upon his personal information interest and requesting the court to order the Defendant to allow using the app despite the dismissal of the Privacy Policy. The Plaintiff also request the court to order the Defendant to make the amende honorable for its infringement and compensate for the economic losses so incurred.

原告认为上述条款违反《个人信息保护法》第16条、第24条的相关规定，侵犯其个人信息权益，请求法院判令被告公司提供在原告不同意上述隐私政策内容时仍能使用案涉APP的选项，并就侵害原告个人信息权益的行为进行赔礼道歉、赔偿经济损失。

The result of investigation shows that in terms of automated decision-making and its application to information push and commercial marketing, the Defendant has taken the following in-app measures to protect users’ right of refusal:

a. Users can choose to either remove customized commercials based on different kinds of goods (or service) or click the button to entirely remove customized commercials by following the in-app instructions “My App – Settings–Privacy – Advertisement Management”;

b. Users can also click the button to entirely dismiss customized recommendations by following the in-app instructions “My App - Settings-Privacy-Recommendation Management”;

c. Users can also choose to delete browsing and search history by following the in-app instructions “My App – Footprint” and “Search Box – Search History”;

d. If users need to view non-customized ranking, he or she can click the button “Screen” on the search result page, and then select “Sales”, “Price” and “General Ranking”. 

The above measures are also clearly set out in the Privacy Policy.

经查，案涉购物APP对于自动化决策及其在信息推送、商业营销行为中的应用，已通过下述APP内措施保障用户的选择权（拒绝权）：（1）在APP内路径“我的APP-设置-隐私设置-广告管理”中，用户可依照不同商品（或服务）类目选择性地剔除个性化广告，也可点击按钮整体关闭个性化广告；（2）在APP内路径“我的APP-设置-隐私设置-推荐管理”中，用户可点击按钮整体关闭个性化推荐；（3）在APP内路径“我的APP-足迹”“搜索框-历史搜索”中，用户可选择删除浏览、搜索记录；（4）若用户需要查看不针对其个人特征的排序，可以在搜索结果页面点击“筛选”，选择其中的“销量”“价格”“通用排序”进行设置。上述用户选择权（拒绝权）保障措施亦明晰载于案涉《隐私权政策》中。

（图片源于网络）

[Summary of the Adjudication]

【裁判内容】

The Hangzhou Internet Court holds that the Privacy Policy adopted by the app in question has safeguarded users’ basic right of informed consent by obtaining their prior general consent at the time of the first operation of the app and registration. At the same time, it provides an after-the-fact selection mechanism for the protection of users' personal information rights and interests by setting convenient automatic recommendation declination options within the APP. 

杭州互联网法院认为，案涉购物APP在《隐私权政策》中采取了首次运行时、用户注册时均提示用户是否同意隐私政策的事前概括同意机制，对用户基本知情同意权进行了保障。同时，通过在APP内部设置便捷的拒绝自动化推荐选项，对用户个人信息权益保障提供了事后选择机制。

Specifically, in terms of automated decision-making and its application to information push and commercial marketing, the Defendant has taken the following in–app measures to protect users’ right of refusal:

a. Users can choose to either remove customized commercials based on different kinds of goods (or service) or click the button to entirely remove customized commercials by following the in-app instructions “My App – Settings – Privacy–Advertisement Management”;

b. Users can also click the button to entirely dismiss customized recommendations by following the in-app instructions “My App–Settings–Privacy–Recommendation Management;

c. Users can also choose to delete browsing and search history by following the in-app instructions “My App – Footprint” and “Search Box – Search History”;

d. If users need to view non-customized ranking, he or she can click the button “Screen” on the search result page, and then select “Sales”, “Price” and “General Sorting”. 

具体而言，案涉APP对于自动化决策及其在信息推送、商业营销行为中的应用，已通过APP内措施保障用户的选择权：一是在“我的APP-设置-隐私设置-广告管理”中，用户可依照不同商品（或服务）类目选择删除个性化广告，或点击按钮整体关闭个性化广告；二是在“我的APP-设置-隐私设置推荐管理”中，用户可以点击按钮整体关闭个性化推荐；三是在“我的APP-足迹”“搜索框-历史搜索”中，用户可以选择删除浏览、搜索记录；四是用户可以在搜索结果页面点击“筛选”，选择其中的“销量”“价格”“通用排序”进行不针对其个人特征的排序设置。

Therefore, the measures mentioned above are consistent with the Article 24 of Personal Information Protection Act because the app has reminded the Plaintiff to read and requested his consent to the Privacy Policy at the time of its first operation and users’ registration. This means the Defendant did not refuse to provide service for the Plaintiff by forcing the Plaintiff to accept the policy. Given this, the Defendant did not infringe upon the personal information interest of the Plaintiff, and thus the court dismissed the action. After the judgement, both parties were bound by it without any appeal. Therefore, the judgement has come into force.

故案涉APP提供的前述选择机制，符合《个人信息保护法》第二十四条的规定，APP在首次运行时、用户注册时提示郭某某阅读并请求其同意《隐私权政策》，并非以拒绝提供服务的形式强迫用户同意的行为。综上，被告公司未侵害原告个人信息权益，法院依法驳回了原告的诉讼请求。判决后，当事人均服从法院判决未提起上诉，判决已生效。

[Key Findings]

【裁判要旨】

(Personal) information processors use automatic decision-making methods for personal information processing activities, such as collecting and using information with personal characteristics, personal information processors need to provide convenient ways to refuse if it is used for the first time. If information processors obtain subjects’ prior general consent through privacy policies or allow rejection ex-post, which can be deemed as the safeguard of subjects’ informed consent. Then there is a legitimate foundation for information processors to use personal information to make automated decisions.

信息处理者利用自动化决策方式进行个人信息处理活动，如收集、使用了具有个人特质的信息，个人信息处理者应当在第一次使用时，向个人提供便捷的拒绝方式。信息处理者事前通过隐私政策等取得个人概括性同意，以及事后提供拒绝方式，可视为对个人知情同意权的保障，此时，信息处理者利用个人信息进行自动化决策具有合法性基础。

If information processors push information through automated decision-making but fail to allow rejection or make it so inconvenient for users to reject the processing that they are unable to do so based on their real expression of intention, then the information processors breach their duties. In this case, the information processors should be considered as infringing  upon users’ personal information interest. 

信息处理者通过自动化决策方式进行信息推送，未向个人提供拒绝的方式或拒绝的方式完全不能达到便捷性要求的，使用户不能依据自己的真实意思表示进行拒绝，则个人信息处理者违反了法定义务，具有违法性，应认定侵害用户个人信息权益。

原文链接：

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/82rYeUUmNzCgehKjY4ifhA