Analysis Of The Application Of Gross Misunderstanding In Internet Mispricing

The study on revocation owing to gross misunderstanding in Internet Mispricing cannot be conducted without the exploration of rulings from courts at all levels since typical problems in the application of gross misunderstanding in Internet Mispricing would be revealed through the study on court rulings.The current General Provisions of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China still adopts a plain method of legislation regarding significant misconception which is not capable of dealing with arguments in theory and practice.The first part of this article analyses four cases which are Mispricing of airconditioners on Suning,Mispricing of sweep machines on Amazon,Mispricing of books on Dangdang and Mispricing of children’s safety chairs on JD to show the nature of the web page of the online price error case,the nature of the automatic reply to the order,and how the gross misunderstandings apply to the handling of disputes in the online price error,and thereby proposes suggestions of these disputes in the second,third and fourth part.The second part of this article mainly focuses on the nature of sale webpage which involves the arguments between theory of offer and theory of an invitation for offer.The author proposes based on scholars that the nature of sale webpage should be determined separately in each case depending on its contents,whether it displays stocks,whether its users make a payment and whether its goods are electronical and etc.This part also judges the nature of reply to offer.The author holds that,between the argument of Acceptance and Payment Received Acknowledgement,if the acknowledgement includes product information,names,addresses,telephone numbers and other information or expressions such as‘delivered in XX hours/ XX days’ from platforms’ reply,these aforementioned replies indicate that platforms or firms are willing to accept offers and prepare to perform the contract,which should be recognized as acceptance.The third part inducts types of reasons causing Internet Mispricing.They are:error of input,error of system program,error of network service provider,error of raw data,price error caused by third-party reason.and concludes that Internet Mispricing caused by erroneous original information such as prices cannot be revoked.This part also discusses whether gross misunderstanding could be adopted in Internet Mispricing and points out the dilemma of application of gross misunderstanding in the context.The last part distinguishes between internet trades and traditional trades.Based on the characteristics of asymmetric,rapid,non-face-to-face and excessive risk of buyers,the information of goods to be sold by online merchants should be comprehensive,accurate,real.the handling of gross misunderstandings about network pricing errors should not be the same as that of the general system of gross misunderstandings.Meanwhile,it points out that the value of the right of revocation owing to platforms’ gross negligence leading to mispricing should be limitedly judged based on features of imbalanced information,non-face to face and buyers’ greater risks in Internet trades and explains reasons for limitation and standards for judgement of gross negligence.However,if the mispricing is obvious or the counterparty obviously takes advantage of this error,platforms’ right of revocation shall not be limited.