Online Group Buying to Be Regulated

作者：吴宁

来源：《新高考·高一英语》2012年第10期

本篇阅读材料的难度属偏难，全文约370词，因此建议阅读时间（含做题）为7分钟。阅读要求：认真阅读短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。 In a major effort to protect customers’ interests， China has begun regulating online group

buying， a growing market with increasing illegal（非法的） business activities in recent years. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce forced its local governments to examine the

qualifications（资格） of online group buying providers and monitor them， according to the latest circular（通告） posted on the administration’s website.

Problems such as cheating， fake（假冒的） products and price raising are becoming more frequent as online group buying grows in China， the circular said. “Complaints related to online group buying have seen a sharp rise，” the administration said.

According to a report made by China E Commerce Research Center， an independent research institute， a total of 203 million people did online shopping in China in 2011， up 28.5 percent from a year earlier.

The country’s online retail（零售） sales reached 801 billion yuan last year， a sharp increase from 514 billion yuan in 2010， the report said. Meanwhile， the number of group buying websites hit 3，909 in December， up from 2，630 in January last year， the institute’s statistics showed. The institute collected about 100，000 complaints related to e commerce last year， 25 percent of which involved online group buying， the report said.

“At present， online shopping gets so many complaints because the country now lacks strict regulations and supervision（监管） of such service providers，” said Wu Xuefei， a researcher at the institute.

In May， gaopeng.com， a Chinese group buying website， fired a vice president after discovering that some of its employees were found to have cheated in an iPhone lottery（摸彩）on weibo. The event drew online doubt about the credibility（可靠性） of the website when the “lucky winners” turned out to be gaopeng’s employees. “It is certain that consumers will lose confidence in online group buying， if such events continue to hit them in future，” she said.

Experts said the latest circular is timely and will benefit a sound development of the online group buying industry. Many complaints may be avoided if group buying websites are required to clarify