entered a key match point in the Double Eleven World War. The State Administration of Market Supervision issued the "Guidelines for Anti-Monopoly in the Field of Platform Economy (Draft for Comment)" (hereinafter referred to as "Draft for Comments") on November 10. This is another key field after the automobile industry and the raw material medicine field. There will be special antitrust guidelines.
"Draft for Soliciting Comments" has six chapters and 24 articles. The "Draft Opinions" clarified that the implementation of anti-monopoly supervision in the field of platform economy adheres to the five principles, and the various restrictions on consumption in the past are now clearly defined. For example, requiring transaction counterparties to conduct "choice of two" between competitive platforms, restricting transactions with designated operators, and restricting transactions with specific operators will be included in the analysis of whether they constitute restricted transactions. In addition, the "thunder" of bundled consumption has been "swept out" one by one.
"This policy was introduced just before Double Eleven, and the signal is very strong. Double Eleven has always been the leading role of several giants. Although this regulation has come a little late, it will come sooner or later." Sun Yat-sen University Lingnan College Finance and Taxation Dean Lin Jiang said. After the release of the
"Draft of Opinions," the share prices of many Internet platform companies including Alibaba, JD.com, and Meituan have plummeted. How does
determine "choose one of two"? Coordinated behavior can also be considered as Article 5 of the "Draft Opinions" of
, which states that monopoly agreements in the field of platform economy mainly refer to agreements, decisions, or other coordinated behaviors by platform operators and operators within the platform that exclude or restrict competition.
Agreements and decisions can be in written or oral forms. Other collaborative behaviors refer to the fact that the operators have not clearly concluded agreements or decisions, but substantially coordinated behaviors.
This is commonly known as the "choose one" of the e-commerce platform. In the 618 e-commerce centralized promotion activities last year, Galanz issued multiple statements in a row, accusing the Tmall platform of coercing it to “choose one of two” and quitting Pinduoduo, and “adopting technical interference” to it. The sales of the six core flagship stores and specialty stores on the cat platform have declined significantly, ranging from 41.05% to 89.06%. During the same period, Galanz’s sales on JD increased by 31.21%."
Just recently, social e-commerce love inventory issued a statement, requiring Vipshop to stop the "choose one" behavior.
Because "choose one of the two" is one of the simplest and rude ways to build a "moat", many platforms will require merchants to do so, but it is only based on the previous documents issued and publicly stated, until later privately Ask the merchant.
For merchants, in order to circumvent the “choose one” rule, they will take some measures at the same place, such as staggering the brands, setting up different brands in Chinese and English for the same product, or using different display pictures and different text descriptions , "In fact, the two online and offline brand strategies in the past were used between different e-commerce platforms." A head of a beauty company in Guangzhou told reporters.
The monopoly problem is not just for businesses. "For example, if you buy things on JD.com, you can only use WeChat instead of Alipay. On the contrary, you must use Alipay on Taobao and Tmall. For consumers, you don't have many choices." Lin Jiang Say.
will not be allowed to see the same products or services as
by "big data". Different people see different prices. Some people ridiculed that "old users are not as good as dogs", which means that the prices seen by old users are more expensive.
For another example, the same is the membership service of buying a video website, and the monthly subscription of Android phone users is cheaper than that of Apple; different models of mobile phones are more expensive in the same taxi comparison.
This is called by the industry as "big data mastering". The "Draft for Comments" puts forward in Article 17 that operators in the field of platform economy with dominant market positions may abuse their dominant market positions, impose differential treatment on counterparties with the same trading conditions without justifiable reasons, and exclude or restrict market competition. How does
confirm whether it constitutes differential treatment? The "Draft of Opinions" considers four aspects: (1) Based on big data and algorithms, implement differential transaction prices or other transaction conditions based on the payment ability, consumption preferences, and usage habits of the counterparty of the transaction; (2) Based on big data Harmony algorithm, the implementation of differential transaction prices or other transaction conditions for new and old transaction counterparts; (3) implementation of differential standards, rules, and algorithms; (4) implementation of differential payment terms and transaction methods.
However, in view of the situation that the platform is cheaper to attract new users and new users’ first transaction, the "OpinionsThe Draft does not consider it to constitute "differential treatment".
IT lawyer Zhao Zhanzhu believes that if consumers buy the same service at a higher price, there will be differential treatment, which will easily hurt consumers' feelings.
suddenly attacked? The regulatory authorities have made several attempts at
, although it seems to the outside world that the anti-monopoly supervision of the Internet platform chose the eve of Double Eleven, and it was a bit sudden. But in fact, the relevant regulatory authorities have always maintained a coherent regulatory posture.
Just a few days before the release of the "Draft of Opinions", on November 5, the State Administration for Market Regulation held a "Regulation of Network Management Activities Administrative Guidance Symposium" in response to the high incidence of concentrated online sales activities in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. ", convene more than 20 platform companies including JD, Kuaishou, Meituan, Pinduoduo, Suning and Alibaba to participate in the conference. The
conference emphasized that during the Double Eleven period, it is strictly forbidden for all platforms to watch eyeballs, play sideballs, and pursue traffic and sales unilaterally. Earlier on September 11, the National Anti-Monopoly Bureau also issued the "Guidelines for Operators' Anti-Monopoly Compliance." Insiders in the industry believe that the introduction of relevant laws and regulations at a specific time point will undoubtedly help promote the greatest attention to the spread of the law, and then trigger a "law popularization" on a larger scale.
For example, on the eve of this year’s National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival, the "Interim Regulations on the Management of Online Tourism Operations and Services" announced by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism will be officially implemented on October 1. Focus on rectifying unreasonable low-price travel on online travel platforms, and the "killing" of big data.
"In fact, this is not a sudden attack." In Lin Jiang's view, many market supervision and management agencies have launched a series of attacks to promote anti-monopoly and prevent platform companies from infringing on consumer interests due to market competition. However, the new supervision also puts forward new requirements on the department. For example, it is cumbersome to determine whether a platform is a monopoly. Someone needs to report and complain, and what procedures are needed to determine that the complainant’s report is reasonable and normal. , Where are its boundaries, etc., many concepts need to be clarified one by one.
[Reporter] Gao Xiaoping
