Chinanews.com, Beijing, August 22 (Lei Xiaolin and Xia Bin) The seminar "Openness, Neutrality and Innovation Driven-Platform Ecological Governance Concepts and Paths" organized by the Internet Rule of Law Research Center of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was recently online At the meeting, Li Yongjian, a researcher at the Institute of Finance and Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said at the meeting that large-scale Internet platform companies may use their own advantages to penetrate downstream and gain a competitive advantage in the downstream field.
The “self-preferential treatment” behavior of super platforms is worthy of vigilance. Using one's own advantages to discriminate against other operators is a form of discrimination.
"Self-preferential treatment" means that platform companies not only act as transaction intermediaries in the online market, but also function as "core facilities" in a sense, thus forming a unique advantage and the ability to place beneficial results in a more favorable position.
Li Yongjian cited, for example, that Apple puts its own apps in the app store in a more prominent position, Tencent has banned Douyin, Feishu, Xiaohongshu and other products, while products on this platform such as Enterprise WeChat can be normal on the platform. Operation is a self-preferential behavior of the platform.
"Self-treatment" is related to the dual role enjoyed by online platforms.
As a regulator or gatekeeper, as well as a market participant, the digital platform can use its power to give preferential treatment to other entities for its own products and services.
Li Yongjian further stated that “self-preferential treatment” generally involves two or more markets, one is the basic market, and the other is the upstream and downstream markets associated with the basic market.
For the digital platform, the operating platform occupies a dominant position in the basic market, and it will also operate other businesses in the basic market.
Because the basic market has the functions of supervising the operators on the platform and allocating resources, the platform may use this power formed in the basic market to give special preferential treatment to its own business on the platform.
"The theoretical background of the'self-preferential treatment' of digital platforms is because the platform has unprecedented power. Traditional monopoly economics tells us that monopoly is because of the power to set prices or increase prices and control output. However, in digital platforms, on the one hand, the platform itself will Bring some new powers and strengths, for example, many platforms have the role of information filtering "gatekeeper". On the other hand, the platform itself may be a core facility, and many applications are running on this facility. These applications may be developed by the platform itself , It may be developed by a third party.” Li Yong insisted that in general, the “self-preferential treatment” platform is not only a market intermediary, but also a core facility to some extent.
Li Yongjian believes that whether it is platform “self-preferential treatment” or platform ecological governance, the multiple attributes of the platform must be taken into consideration. The issue of “self-preferential treatment” must be grasped from multiple perspectives and dimensions, including efficiency, transaction costs, innovation, fairness, Social progress, consumer rights protection, privacy protection.
When studying the regulation of platform "self-preference" issues, it is necessary to consider whether the original policy of structural separation is feasible.
"In the future, how to link the governance of the platform ecosystem with the promotion of innovation and technological self-reliance is a question worthy of our in-depth consideration." (End)