The Central Economic Work Conference held from December 16 to 18 determined that "strengthening anti-monopoly and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital" is one of the key tasks next year. This is the third time that the central government has deployed anti-monopoly work in the past month.
In fact, in the face of the "super platform" of the Internet, anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies around the world have adopted strong regulatory attitudes and restrictive measures, and strengthening anti-monopoly supervision has become a global trend.
Prohibition of restrictions on competitive bundling
The anti-monopoly disputes of Internet companies in European and American countries can be traced back to the last century-the 1998 US government v. Microsoft case is the most typical anti-monopoly case in the technology industry.
In 1995, a web browser launched by Microsoft's rival Netscape was very popular.
In order to suppress Netscape, Microsoft developed the Internet Explorer (IE) browser, and when it pre-installed the Windows operating system for computer manufacturers, it bundled the IE browser through an exclusive contract.
In 1996, computer manufacturers such as Netscape and Compaq filed a joint complaint with the US Department of Justice against Microsoft.
In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys of 20 states jointly sued Microsoft for violating the antitrust law on the grounds that Microsoft's personal computer Windows operating system forced the sale of IE browser.
The case finally ended in a settlement between Microsoft and the US government in 2001. In the end, Microsoft did not "bundle" the IE browser and the Windows operating system as illegal, nor did it require Microsoft to "unbind" it, but it restricted Microsoft from manufacturing computers. The terms proposed by the supplier.
Although the US Department of Justice's lawsuit against Microsoft came to an end in a settlement, the dispute over Microsoft's unfair competition in other parts of the world did not end there. In these cases, Microsoft mostly ended in loss.
In 2004, the Korea Fair Trade Commission ruled that Microsoft was suspected of using its monopoly to conduct unfair competition, fined it 32 million U.S. dollars, and required Microsoft to launch a Windows operating system for the Korean market within 180 days, excluding Microsoft's own video and instant chat software.
The EU antitrust agency fined Microsoft 497 million euros for bundling its own video software with the Windows operating system, and ordered Microsoft to modify the Windows operating system within 90 days.
In July of the same year, the Japan Fair Trade Commission issued an advisory letter to Microsoft, stating that Microsoft forced personal computer manufacturers to accept the "non-executive patent clause", recommended that they delete it, and launched an investigation into its suspected monopoly behavior.
In 2018, Internet giant Google was also punished by the European Union for similar bundling sales.
On July 18, 2018, the European Union announced that it had issued a 4.34 billion euro (about 5 billion US dollars) fine to Google to punish Google for using its own Android (Andriod) operating system market monopoly advantage to forcibly bundle Google search services And the behavior of Google Chrome browser.
Limit traffic distribution tilt
Everbright Securities analyst Wang Yifeng pointed out that most of the Internet giants, centralized traffic platforms have control over the distribution of traffic, which makes it easy for them to tilt their own traffic advantages to their own businesses in terms of traffic distribution. The referee is a player again.
One of the most typical is the EU's penalty of 2.4 billion euros for Google.
On June 27, 2017, the European Union issued a fine of 2.42 billion euros (approximately US$2.7 billion) for Google's violation of EU competition regulations.
This figure also broke the European Union’s record of 1.06 billion euro fines imposed in 2009.
The EU statement pointed out that after Google entered the shopping comparison market, it used its dominant position in online search to manipulate search results and unfairly lead customers to its own shopping services.
It is understood that the EU has issued more than 9 billion US dollars in antitrust penalties over the past three years.
On November 10, the Indian antitrust regulator announced that it had launched an antitrust investigation against Google, on the grounds that Google was suspected of abusing its dominant position in the Play Store to promote its payment services in the world's largest Internet market.
On December 10, France issued a 100 million euro fine to Google.
Limit the abuse of big data technology to engage in monopoly
European and American countries have initiated strong supervision of Internet platforms abusing their dominant position in big data for illegitimate gains.
In early December, the European Union accused Amazon of using its scale, power and "big data" to gain an unfair competitive advantage for third-party sellers on its platform.
A few days ago, the first phase of the EU's investigation of Amazon has ended, and it has initially determined that the company is engaged in vicious competition.
Analysis believes that next year Amazon will face a fine of up to 10% of its global turnover, which may reach up to 37 billion US dollars.
EU Executive Vice President and Commissioner for Competition and Antitrust Affairs Margaret Westage stated in a statement that from January to November 2020, affected by the epidemic, European e-commerce sales soared to 720 billion euros.
Amazon occupies an important position in European e-commerce, and most French and German consumers will shop on this platform.
By sampling and analyzing Amazon’s 80 million transaction records and 100 million products in the European market, it is found that the products and transaction data of third-party sellers can be seen by Amazon, so that Amazon can optimize its products and prices according to the actual situation. Aspects of management.
The EU believes that Amazon's approach will cause the interests of third-party sellers to be unprotected.
Amazon's self-operated products account for only 10% of all products, but the marketing amount has exceeded half.
At the same time, France issued an antitrust fine of 35 million euros against Amazon.
Strengthen platform antitrust supervision
In recent years, the United States has continuously stepped up antitrust investigations against Internet technology giants.
In October of this year, after a 16-month investigation, the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee released a 449-page technology antitrust investigation report, which pointed to the abuse of market dominance by the four major technology giants of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. , Suppress competitors, hinder innovation, and harm the interests of consumers.
The investigation is only an "appetizer", rectification is the key, and the first to be asked to rectify is Google.
On October 20, the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorney generals of 11 U.S. states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing it of illegally maintaining a monopoly position in the search and search advertising market through anti-competitive and exclusive behavior.
This is the world's most important antitrust case since the Microsoft case in 2000.
At the press conference announcing the prosecution, the US Deputy Attorney General said that it would not rule out the possibility of splitting Google.
If Google faces a split, then this will be the first American company to be split up by a US court in the past few decades.
On December 17, Google was subject to an antitrust lawsuit after a lapse of more than a month. The US regulator accused it of manipulating the digital advertising market in violation of antitrust laws and illegally maintained its monopoly on the search engine and search advertising market through a series of anti-competitive actions. right.
According to incomplete statistics, in the past four years, the four major technology giants of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon have been deeply involved in antitrust investigations on a global scale. Among them, Google has faced 27 cases, Amazon and Apple have faced 22 cases, and Facebook has faced 13 cases. The cumulative amount of antitrust penalties imposed on Google for three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019 exceeded 9 billion US dollars.
Yale University Law School Professor Zhang Taisu said in an interview with the media: "The basic criterion of American antitrust law is to have a negative impact on consumer rights, especially the economic interests of consumers, rather than simply'impeding competition'."
Strictly supervise illegal mergers and acquisitions
In early December, after a year and a half of antitrust investigations, the Federal Trade Commission, the US federal antitrust regulator, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, accusing Facebook of its acquisition of two major competitors, Instagram and WhatsApp, which hindered market competition.
The indictment shows that Zuckerberg has made it clear that he made the acquisition to prevent the growth of competitors.
According to reports, in 2012, Facebook spent US$1 billion to acquire the photo community application Instagram, and in 2014 it spent US$19 billion to acquire the instant messaging application WhatsApp.
The two social network companies could have become Facebook's main competitors, but Zuckerberg quickly acquired the two major competitors at a price that he could not refuse, effectively defusing his direct threat in the social field.
The US Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook is significantly different from the previous case against Google: the investigation of Google is limited to commercial operations in the search and advertising fields, while the lawsuit against Facebook focuses on their acquisition of competitors' mergers and acquisitions.
Since the 1998 Microsoft antitrust lawsuit, the United States has not filed a real heavyweight antitrust lawsuit against technology giants in the past two decades.
Moreover, most of the previous antitrust cases focused on market competition operations, including IBM in the 1970s, AT&T in the 1980s, and Microsoft in the 1990s, and rarely involved mergers and acquisitions of giant companies.
This time the US Federal Trade Commission clearly requested the court to separate Facebook’s two major businesses in the indictment, and also requested that Facebook be prohibited from continuing mergers and acquisitions in the future.
Financial technology expert Ma Chao pointed out that, in a sense, it is the European and American countries that have restricted technology giants such as Microsoft and IBM through anti-monopoly, which has prompted the birth and growth of new Internet players such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.
Now that IBM and AT&T in the United States have been dismantled and dismantled again and again, antitrust investigations by European and American countries against Facebook and Google are also the purpose of promoting fair competition in the market.
On December 15, the European Union promulgated the "Digital Services Law" and the "Digital Market Law", which set stricter rules for some Internet company giants to conduct business in the EU.
The EU commissioner in charge of antitrust practices said: "We want to ensure that users have access to a wide range of security products and services online, and that companies can compete fairly and freely."
The Central Economic Work Conference emphasized that anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition are inherent requirements for improving the socialist market economy system and promoting high-quality development.
"Regulatory authorities around the world will strengthen antitrust supervision of large Internet companies. It is a general trend." According to Sun Nanxiang, a researcher at the Competition Law Research Center of the Institute of International Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, "The core of antitrust lies in the use of rule of law tools to maintain a fair competitive market order. enhance the market competitiveness of the international body, stimulate the vitality of the market. "(This article source: Economic Daily author: She Ying)