Research On The Anti-trust Law Of The Internet Industry Relevant Market Definition

The improvement of Internet technology has brought tremendous opportunity to the development of the industry. Just like traditional economy, Internet economy will also breed a competitive market, which will inevitably give rise to monopoly.In the process of anti-monopoly study, the relevant market definition is the most fundamental but complex procedure.In comparison with traditional industries, the Internet industry has bilateral markets and it is networked, which are quite innovative features of the industry. Thus we can not apply the traditional market definition methods.With the development of Internet industry, this issue has been exposed gradually. In recent years, monopoly cases have occurred both inside and outside of China. As a result, the market definition of Internet industry has drawn the attention of theory circle. The issue of market definition needs innovation and improvement in both legislation and law enforcement.It is a must to complement the existing definition method, introduce new definition method, and define the related markets of Internet industry reasonably. What's more, the government should amend the problems in law enforcement mechanism and litigation procedures in Anti-Monopoly Law, and make use of the existing cases as guidance.The main body of this essay consists of four parts. The first part talks about the common issues in the definition of Internet industry related markets, including the concept of related markets, common definition means and the challenges on these methods resulted from industry particularity. The second part tries to analyse the problems faced by different definition methods from three perspectives, including related product market, related geographic market, and related time market. The third part describes the current situation of market definition on the discussion of defects and issues in existing laws and regulations, and law enforcement. The forth part offers some suggestions to the perfection of the definition of Internet industry related markets.