Primary students receive text books for the new semester at their homes in Xinyu city, East China's Jiangxi province, Feb 26, 2020. Chinese schools have suspended the new semester and moved the classrooms online because of the novel coronavirus outbreak. (Photo: China News Service/Zhao Chunliang)

Chinese regulators have fined Alibaba-backed Zybang and Tencent-invested Yuanfudao, two after-school training institutions at maximum fine of 2.5 million yuan ($389,000) each in the country's most recent effort to standardize the e-commerce sector and crack down upon after-school training chaos that have already aroused protests among many Chinese parents. 

According to a WeChat article published by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), both of the two aforementioned institutions have posted false information on their websites. Zybang, example, misleadcustomers by saying that it is "cooperating with the UN" and displaying unreal customers feedback on its website. Yuanfudao has also posted non-existent teaching experiences on its web. 

Such deeds have violated terms of China's Anti-Unfair Competition Law, the SAMR noted.

Besides, the two institutions have lured customers to shop their products by posting false or misleading prices on their online shops. For instance, Yuanfudao has showed a price discount tag of 9 yuan (cut from the original price tag of 399 yuan) on some of its online shops, but has never sold lessons with such price in reality. This is a violation of China's Price Law, according to the SAMR article.

Both Yuanfudao and Zybang said that they accepted the punishment and are reviewing internal practices. 

China has toughened management on the online sector to standardize their business practice. China's antitrust regulator also recently imposed a fine equivalent to $2.8 billion against Alibaba Group Holding for abusing its dominant position over rivals and merchants on its e-commerce platforms.

The punishment for  after-school institutions also came after government authorities expressed determination to standardize after-school training market in China recently. In a speech made by Education Minister Chen Baosheng in February, the regulators would align after-school training institutions in 2021 to save students from onerous extracurricular classes.