Text/Liu Liang
Just now, the latest investigation results on HowNet’s suspected monopolistic behavior have been released.
HowNet was fined 87.6 million yuan for abusing its market dominance
According to news from the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation on December 26, in May 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation filed a case for investigation into HowNet’s suspected monopolistic behavior in accordance with the Anti-Monopoly Law.
After investigation, HowNet has a dominant position in the Chinese academic literature online database service market in China.
Since 2014, HowNet has abused its dominant position to implement monopolistic behavior.
One is to implement the behavior of selling its database services at unfairly high prices by continuously and substantially increasing service prices, splitting databases and raising prices in disguise;
The second is to restrict academic journal publishing units and universities from authorizing academic journals, doctoral and master's degree theses and other academic literature data to any third party by signing exclusive cooperation agreements, and adopt various reward and punishment measures to ensure the implementation of exclusive cooperation.
The investigation shows that CNKI implements unfairly high prices, restricts transactions, excludes, and restricts competition in the Chinese academic literature network database service market, infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of users, and affects the innovation and development of relevant markets and academic exchanges and dissemination. Article 22 Abuse of market dominance prohibited by items (1) and (4) of Paragraph 1 of Article 22, such as "selling goods at unfairly high prices" and "restricting counterparties to transactions with them without justifiable reasons" Behavior.
According to the provisions of Articles 57 and 59 of the "Anti-Monopoly Law", comprehensively considering factors such as the nature, degree, duration, and elimination of the consequences of illegal acts of HowNet, on December 26, 2022, the market The General Administration of Supervision and Administration made an administrative penalty decision in accordance with the law, ordered HowNet to stop illegal activities, and imposed a fine of 5% of its 2021 domestic sales of 1.752 billion yuan in China, totaling 87.6 million yuan.
At the same time, adhere to the equal emphasis on regulation by law and promotion of development, supervise HowNet to fully implement rectification measures and eliminate the consequences of illegal acts, and require HowNet to carry out comprehensive rectification around the termination of exclusive cooperation, lighten user burdens, strengthen internal compliance management, etc., to promote healthy industry regulation Innovation and development.
"Intellectual Property Infringement" and "High Subscription Fees" Cause Controversy
In recent years, HowNet has attracted social attention due to incidents such as "intellectual property infringement" and "high subscription fees".
At the same time, in view of CNKI's strong position in domestic academic literature resources, whether it is suspected of industry monopoly has also attracted attention.
Since last year, the State Administration for Market Regulation has repeatedly stated to the public that it is verifying and studying whether HowNet is suspected of industry monopoly.
On June 24 this year, the person in charge of the Network Security Review Office stated that in order to prevent national data security risks, maintain national security, and protect public interests, in accordance with the "National Security Law", "Cyber Security Law" and "Data Security Law", in accordance with the "Network Security Law" Security Review Measures”, on June 23, 2022, the Network Security Review Office interviewed the person in charge of Tongfang HowNet (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. and announced the launch of a network security review of HowNet.
It is reported that HowNet holds a large amount of personal information and important data related to key industries such as national defense, industry, telecommunications, transportation, natural resources, health care, and finance, as well as sensitive information such as major projects, important scientific and technological achievements, and key technological trends.
On May 13 this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation notified that according to the preliminary verification, it filed an investigation into CNKI’s suspected monopolistic behavior in accordance with the law.
In December last year, Zhao Dexin, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, sued "China Knowledge Network" for unauthorized collection of more than 100 papers, and all of them won the lawsuit, accumulatively winning more than 700,000 yuan in compensation, which aroused widespread concern.
This year, reports that the Chinese Academy of Sciences and many colleges and universities "can't afford" CNKI have been widely disseminated due to excessive fees.
Previously, Peking University and many other universities also stated that the renewal fee of HowNet was too high.
The number of users used repeatedly ranks among the top three in the world's science and education websites
According to public information, HowNet was founded in 1995 and has now developed into a comprehensive high-tech enterprise integrating digital publishing, knowledge services, knowledge management, and education informatization services.
For more than 20 years, CNKI has initially established the "World Knowledge Big Data" which integrates the three major data of science, society and government through cooperation with more than 20,000 publishing institutions around the world, covering important full texts from 75 countries and regions at home and abroad. There are 280 million documents, more than 300 million abstracts, and 8.2 billion pieces of knowledge.
Obtained more than 300 technical patents and software copyrights.
HowNet also widely serves 33,000 institutional users and more than 170 million individual users in 56 countries and regions in various industries such as teaching and scientific research, the party, the government, the military, legislation and justice, workers, farmers and health, community think tanks, public images, cultural museums, etc. The usage has repeatedly ranked among the top three global science and education websites.
Knowing the mistake of HowNet, how will it be corrected?
Norms are for healthier development.
In the face of punishment, can the pain points of users in the past be rectified, and when will they be corrected?
On December 26, CNKI released an announcement on its official website.
HowNet said that on the basis of extensive consultation, it formulated 15 rectification measures, including thoroughly rectifying exclusive cooperation, substantially reducing service prices, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of authors, continuously optimizing related services, and comprehensively strengthening compliance.
It is now announced and accepted social supervision.
From the perspective of measures, the rectification measures announced by HowNet basically covered everyone’s shortcomings, and also reflected the sincerity of rectification.
For example, the "off-campus access system for university users" is free; the actual transaction price of users' academic literature database services has been reduced by more than 30% within three years.
I hope that CNKI will take this incident as a warning, stick to the "user-centered" business philosophy, firmly adhere to the development orientation of "serving technological innovation, promoting academic dissemination, and assuming social responsibility", and build CNKI into a Chinese Unique, world-class academic resource information platform.