At 9 pm, Xiao Hu, who had just finished overtime, saw a video of a hot pot restaurant exploring on a certain short video platform. The blogger sat in front of the steaming and brightly colored red oil hot pot, feasting on it and shouting "beef freedom". Moved by the video footage and language, Xiao Hu unhesitatingly clicked on the product link and purchased the hotpot restaurant's delicious meal set. However, when Xiao Hu came to the restaurant with high expectations to dine, what was served on the table was a pot of ordinary ingredients, and the amount of beef did not reach the level of "eating casually". Xiao Hu clicked on the store exploration video again. In the video, the blogger enthusiastically shouts "for the benefit of their families", which sounds particularly harsh at this moment. She finally realized that she was just one of the countless consumers selected by traffic algorithms and ultimately paid for implicit advertising. When the filter fades and the rhetoric dissipates, what is the authenticity of the food blogger's store exploration video? In Ziyun Miao and Buyi Autonomous County, Anshun City, Guizhou Province, there are many consumers who have experienced similar "stepping on landmines". Implicit advertising induces consumers to explore stores, which is the real consumption sharing in the Internet era, and is a kind act of ordinary people who use their own experience to avoid pitfalls for others. But driven by the monetization of traffic, this purity is gradually becoming alienated and has become a tool for some bloggers and merchants to profit from marketing. The public interest litigation team of the People's Procuratorate of Ziyun County found in their case that a cultural and media company in Ziyun County has systematically operated 9 store exploration short video accounts since 2023, with a total of more than 4600 videos published, covering multiple fields such as catering, entertainment, and beauty, and more than 3200 food related videos alone. These videos all use highly standardized language templates, with "cost-effectiveness ceiling", "local people hiding", and "secretly telling you" becoming standard features. Every word and sentence is aimed at accurately stimulating the audience's trust and purchasing desire. More importantly, all videos deliberately avoid the legal markings of commercial advertising, disguised as "real sharing", and are used for commercial promotion. After signing a paid promotion agreement with the merchant, the company will "customize" the content according to the requirements of Party A: beautify the dilapidated store environment with filters, take photos and enlarge the insufficient portions of dishes, beauty products, etc., and even exaggerate the effectiveness of the products. The consumer experience that should have been presented truthfully has become a "promotional video" processed on demand, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and leading them to make purchases. When a violation evolves into a common phenomenon in the industry, it harms the legitimate rights and interests of an unspecified majority of consumers and the public interest. ”The public interest litigation prosecutor of Ziyun County Procuratorate told the reporter of Rule of Law Daily that they were keenly aware that this was no longer a simple consumer dispute, but a new issue related to public interests when conducting clue analysis and judgment. The public interest litigation team of Ziyun County Procuratorate is facing many difficulties in delineating the red line for exploring store videos. Firstly, it is difficult to determine the nature, as the boundary between short video content and advertising is blurred, making it difficult to clearly define whether it is ordinary experience sharing or illegal commercial promotion. Secondly, it is difficult to obtain evidence, as electronic evidence is easily tampered with and the funding chain is concealed and difficult to trace. The parties involved include platforms, bloggers, merchants, and other parties, resulting in high costs for identifying illegal activities and difficulties in building the evidence chain. Finally, when collaboration encounters obstacles, the responsibilities of platforms, bloggers, institutions, and merchants are intertwined, which can easily form a "responsibility wheel" and shift blame to each other; The industry's unwritten rule of 'the law does not punish the public' further limits the effectiveness of individual and scattered enforcement actions. After comprehensive analysis, the investigation team has decided to "rectify" the legal nature of the store exploration video. Some practitioners insist that this is a "personal experience sharing" and strongly deny its advertising attributes. In order to clarify the truth, the prosecutors involved in the case plunged into a massive amount of video content, sorted out repetitive language patterns, tracked the financial and contractual relationships behind the videos, and ultimately accurately determined that any video content aimed at obtaining direct or indirect commercial benefits, guided by recommending and selling goods or services, and establishing a cooperative relationship with the operator, regardless of its form of expression, is essentially commercial advertising. This recognition has set a clear and unbreakable legal red line for the store exploration industry. In the face of evidence, the person in charge of the cultural media company involved finally bowed his head and admitted to the illegal act of not labeling advertisements in accordance with the law. The procuratorial organ clearly pointed out that this behavior not only violated the mandatory provisions on advertisement identifiability in the Advertising Law and the Measures for the Administration of Internet Advertising, violated consumers' right to know and choice, but also constituted unfair competition, damaged the healthy market ecology, and required them to make immediate and comprehensive rectification. The purpose of public interest litigation on the "Combination Fist" encrypted regulatory network is not limited to punishment. The Ziyun County Procuratorate conducted a thorough analysis of the regulatory blind spots and social governance shortcomings exposed by the case, and decided to promote governance work through pre litigation prosecutorial suggestions. On August 8, 2025, the court issued a procuratorial proposal to the Ziyun County Market Supervision Administration according to law, pointing directly to three core issues: first, clarify the regulatory standards, and propose to include the store exploration videos with the nature of commercial cooperation into the scope of Internet advertising supervision; The second is to carry out special rectification, and it is suggested to launch a special action against the disorderly advertising in the red probe stores within the jurisdiction; The third is to establish a long-term mechanism. It is suggested to promote the establishment of a "platform institution blogger merchant" main responsibility system and explore a normalized regulatory mechanism that is in line with the characteristics of new business formats. After the issuance of the prosecutorial suggestion, the Ziyun County Market Supervision Administration quickly established a working team and launched a set of governance "combination punches": the "dragnet style" investigation and law enforcement were launched first. Law enforcement personnel conducted a comprehensive investigation of more than 30 key catering businesses, cultural media companies, and well-known store exploration bloggers in the county. Those who were found to have engaged in illegal activities such as unmarked advertising and false advertising were interviewed and ordered to rectify within a specified time limit in accordance with the law, leaving no place for offenders to hide; Following closely behind was the "penetrating" refund and rights protection. The Market Supervision Bureau urged the involved merchants to proactively contact consumers whose rights were damaged, and refunded more than 1000 yuan, effectively recovering the economic losses of the masses; The "drip irrigation" legal education training is being promoted simultaneously, and special legal training sessions are being organized to provide detailed interpretations of relevant regulations such as the Advertising Law and the Consumer Rights Protection Law for more than 100 store exploration bloggers; The "forward-looking" establishment of rules and regulations and the implementation of long-term supervision mechanism for Internet marketing activities of the Market Supervision Administration of Ziyun Autonomous County led the formulation of the Implementation Plan of the Market Supervision Administration of Ziyun Autonomous County, innovated and established the dynamic supervision mode of "regular inspection+'double random' random inspection+social supervision and reporting", and also strengthened the linkage between the transfer of clues and law enforcement with the Internet information, public security, procuratorial and other departments, so that the regulatory network becomes more and more dense. Nowadays, when you open a local short video platform and search for "Ziyun Tandian", although there are still many tempting food videos, many of them already have "advertisement" prompts in the corners or beginning. In the comment section, the reporter saw this message: "After seeing that the label is an advertisement, I have a clear idea and dare to give it a try." The prosecutor in charge of the case reminds consumers to remain rational and vigilant in the face of internet celebrities exploring stores. When watching store exploration videos, be sure to pay attention to whether they are labeled with "advertising" signs, and be cautious of implicit commercial promotions that claim to be "real sharing". If encountering false advertising, one can protect their legitimate rights and interests through formal channels such as the 12315 platform or providing public interest litigation clues to the procuratorial organs. The work of the procuratorial organs has not stopped. The public interest litigation team of Ziyun County People's Procuratorate is focusing on a broader new Internet business. The "good reviews" of takeout and the false propaganda of live broadcast with goods are all within its supervision vision. It is committed to providing a solid judicial barrier for the protection of consumer rights and interests by giving play to the procuratorial function of public interest litigation. (New Society)