Zhai Wei, Associate Professor of East China University of Political Science and Law: Rapidly Promoting Interconnection and Regulating the "Pinch-Point Ban" of Super-large Platforms

Reporters Qu Zhongfang and Li Zhenghao reported in Beijing

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has continued to promote the special rectification of the "blocked URL link" problem in the Internet industry, which has aroused great concern from all walks of life. On September 15th, the "Seminar on The Openness and Sharing of the Platform Economy" sponsored by Chinese Min University was held, and experts and scholars from academia, industry and legal circles held a fierce discussion on the interconnection of the Internet industry.

Zhai Wei, associate professor of the School of Economic Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that the banning behavior or malicious blocking has a strong similarity with the "two to choose one" behavior that has been punished by the regulatory authorities before, and the ban and blocking is equivalent to the "two to choose one" behavior in a broad sense, which affects the fair competition right of market entities, and also damages the user's right to free trade, aggravates the fragmentation and segmentation of the Internet industry, and affects the free trading, integration and circulation of data flow resources, thus affecting the high-quality development of the entire Internet industry.

<b>Jeopardize industry innovation on two levels</b>

Zhai Wei believes that the act of banning and blocking not only involves damage to fair competition across platforms, but also involves damage to the innovative development of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially start-ups. The rectification of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is actually from the perspective of supervision and from the perspective of ensuring the high-quality development of the entire Internet industry, paving the way for China's Internet industry to enter a comprehensive interconnection and sustainable development.

"Super-large platform enterprises have a huge traffic pool, in this case, it bans small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, I name it 'pinch-and-tip ban', that is, super-large platform enterprises can have subversive technologies, innovative business models of small and medium-sized enterprises, start-ups in the block list, refuse the products and services of such enterprises, and interconnect with their own super platforms, so it is easy to cause harmful market innovation consequences." Zhai Wei said so.

For the harm of "pinch-point ban" to market innovation, Zhai Wei believes that it is mainly reflected in two levels: First, small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, even if they have high-tech, innovation-driven products or new business models, but because they cannot communicate with the super-large platforms with the necessary facility attributes, it is difficult to obtain a large number of users, which makes them lose the main channels for docking the majority of customer groups, and the result is that small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups are gradually marginalized, and the living space is greatly squeezed. Second, while banning and blocking, super-large platform enterprises may imitate or copy the new products and services of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups that are blocked by them, and sell these imitation products and services through their own super-large platforms. In the long run, the entire Internet industry will form a situation of "bad money expelling good money", which will seriously stifle the innovation mechanism of the Internet industry and hinder the sustainable and high-quality development of the market.

In Zhai Wei's view, the heavy rectification of the regulatory authorities is not only conducive to the interconnection of ecosystems between major platform enterprises and the promotion of fair competition, but also conducive to avoiding the phenomenon of "no grass under the big tree" and providing a broad living space and innovation opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. On the road of interconnection, whether it is a large or super-large platform enterprise, or a small and medium-sized enterprise, it can truly focus on technological innovation orientation, focus on serving the public orientation, and form a fair competition, standardized and orderly development trend.

<b>Build an open and shared Internet ecosystem</b>

There is a general consensus in the industry that the past blockages between Internet platforms have greatly increased the time costs, transfer costs and free transactions of platform users, harming the interests of the entire public, which is contrary to our advocacy of "the fruits of the development of the digital economy should be shared by the public" and the goal of common prosperity.

Zhai Wei said that in the new development pattern of "double circulation", measures such as the removal of malicious blocking links by regulators such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have a decisive role and far-reaching significance for building an open and shared Internet ecosystem. On the one hand, under the open and shared Internet ecosystem, super-large platform enterprises can use platform data technology to empower the development of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises under the guidance of regulatory authorities, and become the "incubator" for the development of the latter; on the other hand, super-large platform enterprises abandon the blocking and shielding model, and for themselves, they can turn to an innovative development model, thus helping China to enhance its core competitiveness in the global science and technology field.

It should be pointed out that in addition to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation published the Provisions on the Prohibition of Unfair Competition on the Internet (Draft for Public Comment) in August this year, which also involves the avoidance of malicious blocking behavior and the exploration of its implementation standards, which is still in the process of legislative advancement.

Zhai Wei further pointed out that "the malicious ban on Internet platforms, whether placed under the legal system such as the Anti-Monopoly Law and the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, or from the perspective of industry supervision, is obviously an illegal act, affecting the healthy and orderly development of the entire Internet industry." Therefore, the regulation of it should be a combination of fists, which is both the regulation of industry supervision and the constraint and regulation of the legal level. ”

(Editor: Zhang Jingchao Proofreader: Zhai Jun)