Judicial Determination and Multi-Legal Infringements of Compulsory Shake-to-Redirect Advertisements

Abstract

Following China’s 2021 regulation on traditional splash ads, compulsory shake-to-redirect ads have rapidly emerged, exploiting mobile sensors to force page redirects without genuine user consent. Existing research, however, lacks unified judicial determination criteria and systematic analysis of narrow judicial identification for ordinary users’ lawsuits under the principle of no trial without a claim, leaving a notable gap in establishing a claim system tailored to such torts. Therefore, this study investigates three core issues: the legal definition of compulsory shake-to-redirect ads, their constitutive elements of infringement under multiple legal regimes, and the corresponding relief paths for aggrieved users. The study adopted a methodology of concept definition, typical case analysis, multi-domain legal evaluation, and comparative law perspectives. The findings reveal that user authorization, reasonableness of trigger thresholds, ad-block settings, and the provability of actual harm are key judicial determinants. This paper confirms that compulsory shake-to-redirect advertisements form a progressive infringement structure, breaching the Civil Code, the Consumer Rights and Interests Protection Law, and the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL). Regarding remedies, it further proposes that users may assert alternative compensatory damages under claim concurrence and non-compensatory measures under claim accumulation. Theoretically, this study sorts out the applicable logic of multi-field norms and puts forward a three-layer infringement identification model for multi-domain legal qualification, filling the research gap in narrow judicial identification. Practically, it also provides references for judicial adjudication and user litigation, ultimately promoting a healthier mobile application ecosystem.