A few words but a big deal! WeChat for Business announces a severe crackdown on "hacks"

Why do WeChat companies crack down on "cheating" behavior? This article will help you find out the reasons. This article is also recommended to bosses who need to use WeChat for Business to avoid mistakes.

Yesterday evening (June 12), the official WeChat account for Enterprise released a new announcement on Weibo, saying it would " continue to crack down on cheating behavior."

Information such as "continued severity", "functions such as simulating user manual operations through robotic process automation", and "litigation" were particularly concerned.

1. What did the announcement say?

Qiwei stated in the announcement:

WeChat for Business is committed to working with ecosystem partners to help companies improve efficiency in internal and external collaboration scenarios. Protecting user experience and data security, and ensuring the health and healthy development of the third-party ecosystem are the "lifeline" of WeChat for Business. To this end, we have also formulated a series of specifications and agreements.

Recently, we have discovered that some technology developers have implemented "plug-in" behaviors without the authorization and permission of Enterprise WeChat, to achieve functions including but not limited to: opening multiple accounts, circumventing the restrictions on the number of group messages sent by Enterprise WeChat, and simulating user manual operations through robotic process automation.

Such "plug-in" services bring huge security risks to official software and user data, and also greatly damage the healthy development of the WeChat Enterprise ecosystem. WeChat Enterprise continues to crack down on "plug-in" behavior. For individuals and companies that develop "plug-in" software and provide "plug-in" services, we will take all legal means, including litigation, to protect their legitimate rights and interests. We also call on users to reject "plug-ins" to avoid potential risks to account security and corporate data security.

The announcement has attracted the attention of the industry because WeChat for Business has become the foundation of user operations. Whether it is the WeChat ecosystem itself or global operations, many companies are accustomed to using WeChat for Business as the operating base, that is, users are deposited on WeChat for Business. Therefore, various expansion needs and enhanced applications have become extremely rigid. The tool market was once extremely prosperous.

The application also brings a role, that is, when brands/merchants just start private domain operations, they often do not immediately launch the system, but use the tools at hand to try and test their strengths and the layout they should have. In the annual industry surveys in the past, we can see the clear path of "application-system-refined operation-business model upgrade".

In addition to the great demand for efficiency improvement brought about by the rise of AI and the demand for cost reduction under market pressure, good, handy and powerful tools are what is being called for at the moment.

2. What the industry really cares about and needs

The industry's discussion on the announcement focused on several aspects.

First:

The crackdown has been going on for a long time. Since the end of last year, Jianshi has recorded many large-scale account blocking actions against brands and businesses in order to combat plug-ins. (Extended reading: Be careful, another wave of account blocking is underway).

However, this announcement shows that the targets of the crackdown are not only brands and merchants, but the focus has also shifted to the developers of these "plug-ins".

A person familiar with Qiwei told Jianshi that "the prices of plug-ins sold by those who sell them are not cheap. In fact, the core functions are to break through official restrictions or group control. These people live well, which is unfair to the manufacturers who are honest in SaaS."

A senior executive of a SaaS manufacturer also made a clear comment: We think this is a good thing and a necessary step in the development of the ecosystem. We hope that WeChat Enterprise will really make up its mind to do it. Excessive consumption of user terminals is not sustainable, and it is something that WeChat has always disapproved of.

The current service provider ecosystem has been severely eroded due to various "violations" in the market for products with regular iterative product capabilities. In the end, everyone has become caught in a vicious competition of violations and price cuts.

Of course, WeChat must also truly face up to the demands of corporate customers and use product capabilities to help customers achieve smooth business flow . In this way, under a certain degree of control, enterprises can still rely on their own operational capabilities to obtain value, which is the best.

In this statement, we can clearly see the dissatisfaction of micro-enterprises with the late action of the platform and the insufficient response of micro-enterprises to customer demands.

Why the aforementioned rigid demands can become supply and demand is precisely because the interface and open capabilities provided by WeChat for Business cannot meet the normal operational demands of brand merchants, so they have to seek external "plug-ins".

Second:

The announcement mentioned "simulating manual operations through robotic process automation", which is what the industry generally refers to as RPA technology. In the discussion of the big account ban, the industry generally believes that this is almost the most effective alternative and response plan.

But this announcement clearly stated that this technology is also classified as part of the plug-in industry.

When looking back at past discussions and comments, Jianshi has been reminding the industry and practitioners that RPA is actually treated as a plug-in, so there is no such thing as a safe or effective solution.

This morning, that is, on the morning of the 13th, in the industry exchange group of Jianshi, several major brands stated that they would quickly suspend the relevant fixed-open or already-applied energy supply, fearing that they would be affected in the subsequent account suspension.

More developers, application teams, and large brand merchants that provide customized development in the industry have already started internal discussions and evaluations this morning. It is estimated that many conclusions will be shared in industry exchanges later this year.

Third:

The official announcement explicitly mentioned the "lawsuit". There have been some rumors circulating in the industry about the relevant actions. However, it is not relevant to this article, so I will not discuss it in detail. I will just treat it as gossip in the group.

3. Industry Expectations

After the announcement, some brands mentioned that they would move back to their personal WeChat accounts. However, this is probably just a spur-of-the-moment statement. Because personal WeChat tools are also among those being targeted, and corporate WeChat accounts can at least allow users to resign and transfer customers, but if personal WeChat accounts are blocked, "there is really nothing left."

Below the announcement, users’ comments are also seen here:

The industry's opinion tends to be: We are not afraid of cracking down on plug-ins, but we are afraid that the demand will not be met or that users cannot be better managed. Therefore, in addition to cracking down on plug-ins, the focus is on what are the safe, available, and easy-to-use alternatives?

So, what are the needs?

For example, some brands have suggested that the upper limit of corporate WeChat friends can be increased to 50,000-100,000. Allowing multiple accounts to merge chats or open multiple accounts can save a lot of trouble.

In the tool survey conducted by Jianshi at this moment (the sample size is only about 50 companies, which is not large), nearly 80% of the companies have experienced account suspension. The most mentioned needs are: aggregated chat, automated operations, group messaging/group control, user fission, etc., which are also at the forefront of the most needs.

This survey is currently in progress. It was originally a preliminary survey conducted for the tool conference held by Jianshi on July 18 (Are you afraid of having your account blocked? Let’s change + choose a few good private domain operation tools in July!).

The original intention was to bring together people from the upstream and downstream of the industry chain to talk about new tools that are available, usable and easy to use.

However, these calls have been made for many years and have rarely been addressed. A brand private domain manager said during the discussion:

Qiwei is very clear about the needs of merchants, but it is difficult to promote them because "people as service" is their lifeline.

For example, the upper limit of friends cannot exceed 20,000, because real people cannot serve so many customers well; automatic sending and automatic replying of messages are also separated from real people’s services. RPA simulation operations cannot be allowed. It does not involve data security. It is mainly separated from real people’s services. Aggregate chat cannot be allowed to improve efficiency, but it is essentially a centralized operation and is not distributed to real individuals. It cannot be allowed...

This is what caused the pain for brands and businesses today, and it was also the reason for the prosperity of tool applications.

However, WeChat for Business has also been quietly changing, beginning to respond to the needs of brands and merchants and starting to change itself.

Since the new version was released at the end of May, Qiwei has clearly paid attention to these demands of brands and merchants, and started to provide and meet them. There are detailed records in the article (Big News! Qiwei cancels the limit on the number of people exposed in Moments). As a result, a lot of voices of support and affirmation were recorded in the industry.

The announcement on WeChat Enterprise is short but significant. Behind it is a series of major industry events that will unfold in sequence. It also includes the needs of a large number of brands and merchants. How will they be met and undertaken, or where will they go?

Author: See the truth

Source: WeChat public account "Jianshi" (ID: jianshishijie)