China’s biggest internet companies have agreed to share data with government authorities in an effort to eliminate fake online reviews for services such as taxi rides and restaurants.

中国最大的一些互联网公司已同意对政府机构共享数据，这一努力旨在消除对出租车、餐馆等服务的虚假网络评论。

Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, 58.com, Didi Chuxing and Baidu have all agreed to support the initiative, which aims to improve consumer trust online in a country where faking sales and reviews is commonplace in ecommerce. The practice, known in Chinese as “brushing”, is used by merchants to gain prominent placement and more sales.

阿里巴巴(Alibaba)，腾讯(Tencent)，京东(JD.com)，58同城(58.com)、滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)以及百度(Baidu)都已同意支持这一举措，此举旨在提高消费者在网上的信任感。中国电子商务中充斥着虚假销售和评论，商家用“刷单炒信”的方式获取更靠前的排位和更多销量。

The National Development and Reform Commission, a key government agency, said yesterday that the agreement to fight “credit manipulation” would be part of a larger project announced last year to create a national “social credit system” aimed at promoting online trustworthiness.

中国国家发展和改革委员会昨日表示，打击“炒信”协议是全国“社会信用体系”大型项目建设的一个组成部分，该项目于去年宣布，旨在提高网络上的可信度。

“This [brushing] industry is becoming bigger and bigger, causing increasing danger to the healthy development of e-commerce business,” said Zhao Chenxin, an NDRC spokesperson.

发改委新闻发言人赵辰昕表示：“（‘炒信’）产业链规模越来越大，对电子商务健康发展的危害越来越突出。”

Despite the pro-consumer rhetoric, there were worries that tightening rules on online reviews and transactions would help the government create more accurate profiles of Chinese citizens. The NDRC would be compiling a “credit blacklist” as part of a “joint disciplinary scheme,” one official acknowledged.

这一说法虽然听起来有利于消费者，但也有人担心，收紧关于网络评论和交易的规定将帮助政府创建更准确的中国公民资料。一位官员承认，发改委将编制“炒信黑名单”，作为一项“联合惩戒制度”的一部分。

The “social credit” plan published last year already has the aim of using algorithms and big data to rate not just citizens’ creditworthiness, but their overall “honesty” and “trustworthiness”.

去年发布的“社会信用”计划已然确立了这样的目标：不仅要用算法和大数据对公民信用评分，还要对他们的整体“诚实度”和“可信度”评分。

“The incentive scheme for integrity and joint disciplinary scheme for dishonesty is an important part of China’s social credit system,” said Zhou Min of the NDRC’s state information centre.

发改委国家信息中心副主任周民表示：“守信联合激励和失信联合惩戒是我们国家社会信用体系建设顶层设计的一项重要内容。”

Privacy advocates fear the system is actually designed for mass surveillance. So far, however, government efforts have been largely theoretical. A draft of the plan said it would “use encouragement” to increase trust online.

主张保护隐私的人们担心该体系实际上是为大规模监视而设计的。但到目前为止，政府的努力基本还停留在理论上。该计划草案表示将“运用激励”来增加网络上的信任度。

The system depends on China’s largest internet groups sharing user data, although no details of what would be provided to the government have been released. One employee of a large internet company admitted “this is mostly driven by our government relations people and we don’t have any details”.

这一信用体系取决于中国大型互联网公司对其共享用户数据，不过关于哪些信息会被提供给政府的具体情况尚未披露。一家大型互联网公司的员工承认，“这主要是我们负责政府关系的人员推动的，我们不清楚任何细节”。

Baidu, China’s largest search engine, and Alibaba, the ecommerce group, said they believed the system would help protect consumers against fraud.

中国最大搜索引擎百度以及电商集团阿里巴巴表示，他们相信该体系有助于保护消费者免受欺诈。