Study On The Regulation On The Abuse Of Market Dominant Position In Internet Industry

With the emergence and development of information technology, the internet industry rapidly springs up. In recent ten or twenty years, internet industry greatly alters the production mode and life style. It can be predicted that internet industry and information technology will be the forceful impetus of development of the productive force for a long time in the future. Internet industry acquires enormous commercial profit and increase rapidly, and consequently the internet giant takes shape, highly concentrating in the markets of various product fields. Meanwhile, the competition causes various problems, such as the multi-business diversification and platformization of big company, the intersection and the homogenization of business content of different companies, the fierce competition in various forms and the innovation frustration of small companies. These problems enable big companies of internet industry to involve in the antitrust law. How to deal with the regulation of antitrust rules on the competitive behavior of internet enterprises has become the common problem for judiciary, law enforcement and theoretical cycle. Internet industry is characterized by short development time, rapid rise and wide range and strong similarity in terms of the law of development and situation nationwide. Therefore, how to regulate the abuse of market dominant position by internet enterprises becomes the common problem of the major scope of law with respect to the antitrust law in the world. However, the difference in history, culture, law and industrial development condition causes different value orientation in similar legislative target of various countries, which guides the application and development of the law and influences the industrial development.The complexity of the application of antitrust law to the internet industry is due to the inherent characteristics of internet. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the inherent characteristics and competition situation of internet industry so as to study how to apply the antitrust law to the regulation of internet industry properly and guarantee its sound development.Two-sided market is widely adopted in the business model of internet industry. Under this business mode, the antitrust law suffers from challenges to some extent. While, two-side market is not initiated by the internet but precedent in traditional fields including mass media and bank card. This thesis studies the two-side market theory in traditional theory and the regulation of traditional antitrust law on the field of mass media and bank card and concludes that it should take the competitive products from both sides into account during defining the product market of internet industry and also should go over the relevant market definition, the essential step in traditional theory and directly affirm the market dominant position of enterprises in order to reduce the judiciary and law enforcement cost and improve the judiciary and law enforcement efficiency of antitrust law.Internet industry belongs to the network industry, possessing obvious characteristics of network industry, namely, network effect. Under this circumstance, the whole industry shows such phenomena as winner-take-all, positive feedback, becoming too conspicuous and locking, which is due to the inherent nature of industry and has big influence on the competition. Based on the exposition of the inherent feature of network industry, this thesis studies the regulation of traditional antitrust law on such fields as telecommunications, ICT hardware manufacturer and bank card, striving to analyze how the antitrust law regulates in response to this phenomenon during its application to the industry with network effect.Internet industry is also characterized by high speed innovation. This thesis reviews the definition of innovation and the theory on the relationship between innovation and competition in economics, analyzes the relationship between innovation and the legislative goal of antitrust law, presents the innovation and antitrust policy of Europe and America and points out the influence of innovation on the value orientation of antitrust law the various factors in the specific analytical framework.This thesis starts from the practice and then respectively analyzes the affirmation of and regulation on the abuse of market dominant position in internet industry based on the inherent logic of antitrust law and the typical cases. On this basis, this thesis comes to conclusion that the application of antitrust law to the internet should be regulated according to the industrial characteristics. It should relax restrictions on relevant market and list the new product which can have the substitution effect within a predictable period into the relevant market as far as possible. The affirmation of the market dominant position of enterprises should take the maintenance time of market forces and the sustainable effect on the market into consideration. In case that the update of technology and product is rapid and the substitutability of some products of the enterprise, it should not affirm it possesses the market dominant position. The deep causes, influence and the difference between the common behavior of internet enterprises and the abuse behavior stipulated by traditional antitrust law should be explored in the affirmation of abuse conduct. The special cost structure and the benefit for the increase of overall efficiency and the consumer welfare should be taken into account during evaluating the rationality of relevant conduct.Finally, this thesis comes to conclusion based on the above discussion. Firstly, the characteristics of internet industry should be properly recognized to avoid reaching an improper conclusion by applying the traditional experience simply. Secondly, giving priority to innovation and efficiency and meanwhile giving consideration to the interests of consumers should be encouraged. Thirdly, the conservative aspect of law should be abided by in the future legislation, judiciary and law enforcement. The law is supposed to be the basic means for maintaining the competition order and concern about the justice of order, prevent bad money from driving out good money and prevent the uncultivated growth of internet enterprises from spoiling the existing regular production and life order instead of excessively involving in the competition process and detail of enterprises. However, it should not only pay attention to the competition among internet enterprisesbut also should comprehend the inevitable competition between internet industry and traditional industry from the perspective of history, economic development and technical progress, maintain the order of inter-industry competition and promote the industrial upgrade and the overall level of productive forces. Fourthly, it should recognize the competition among various internet enterprises from the global competition and should realize that internet industry is a part of comprehensive national strength competition among all countries in the information age. Therefore, we are obliged to promote the industrial development of our country, make our countries’ industry participate in the international competition positively and make contribution to the increase of the comprehensive national strength.