Research On Centralized Anti-monopoly Regulation Of Data-driven Enterprise Operators

In the current economy,big data and intelligent analytics are growing fast,bringing free products to the Internet,from search engines to apps that better monitor our health.Big data plays a central role in many companies’ strategic decisions.More and more companies are adopting data-driven business models and strategies to gain and maintain a competitive "data advantage" over their competitors.Data-driven mergers are on the rise and the risk of abusive behaviour by dominant technology companies is rising.Data-driven exclusion and merger have a significant impact on consumer protection and competition law,which has attracted much attention from anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies.At present,China’s big data industry is developing rapidly.Data-driven enterprises led by baidu,alibaba and tencent(BAT)are developing rapidly,accounting for half of the top 10 enterprises in the Chinese market.For further growth,data-driven companies began to make frequent mergers and acquisitions.In addition,data-driven enterprises are different from traditional enterprises in that their free commodities,bilateral markets,network effects and other characteristics are more likely to hinder the development of competitors,increase the cost of user switching,kill new enterprises by defensive mergers,and promote collusion and other potential competitive hazards.For this,our country must have the crisis consciousness,carries on the timely,the accurate supervision and the review to the data-driven enterprise merger.However,according to the current market definition,declaration standards and review standards of China’s business concentration,it cannot effectively regulate data-driven enterprise merger.From the perspective of relevant market definition,currently effective methods of market definition,such as assumed monopolist test(SSNIP)and demand substitution analysis,cannot be effectively adapted due to the characteristics of data-driven enterprise products free,user lock-in,network effect,etc.,making relevant market definition inaccurate or even impossible to define.From the perspective of declaration standards,the state council’s provisions on the declaration standards for concentration of business operators in China still adopt the single turnover standard,which has a good effect when applied to the concentration of traditional entity enterprises,but cannot effectively regulate data-driven declaration.On the one hand,the turnover of data-driven enterprises is not high,and most of the products are provided to consumers for free.In order to fight the "subsidy war",the turnover is even negative,but their market share is very high and they have a lot of data.On the other hand,the turnover of data-driven enterprises is also difficult to calculate.Thecharacteristics of "intermediate platform" make it controversial whether the salary paid by enterprises to the platform should be regarded as the turnover.In terms of censorship standards,antitrust enforcement.The legal body is more concerned with examining whether the price of goods will rise after the merger,ignoring the important role of non-price competition factors,while the free goods of data-driven enterprises will not be changed into fees because of the merger.As a result,current review standards do not fully identify the hazards of data-driven mergers.At present,countries and organizations outside the region have begun to modify relevant legislation or change traditional practices in order to better regulate data-driven enterprise concentration.In 2007,the federal trade commission first proposed the concept of "big data markets" in the case of Google and Double Click.In 2017,Germany passed the ninth amendment to the anti-restriction of competition,which not only introduced a supplementary threshold based on transaction volume,but also took user size,data distribution and access as important factors to identify market forces.Austria also revised its anti-monopoly and competition law in 2017,adjusting the threshold for merger filings.Combined with outside the regulatory data driven enterprises focused on advanced experience and large data industry development situation in our country,in the relevant market definition tool choice,according to the different specific case to choose different ways to define,can also add new methods,such as product performance test method,other factors can also enough evidence to prove that merge behavior will harm competition,reasonable desalinating relevant market concept.In terms of the declaration standard,we should abandon the single threshold for the declaration of turnover,implement multiple declaration standards such as turnover,turnover and market share,and take the initiative to negotiate for the merger of large turnover.In terms of the examination criteria,in view of the characteristics of data-driven enterprises,it is emphasized to examine whether merger behaviors constitute monopoly synergies and unilateral effects.When the price factors are not obvious,it is emphasized to examine the changes of non-price competition factors.Anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies should take more initiative to investigate mergers in accordance with their authority and exercise their discretion within reasonable limits.In terms of concept,the concept of concentration of operators can also be clarified to refine the "standard of acquisition of control".In addition,our country also will merger review as one of antitrust enforcement measures,but had a greater influence on the consolidation behavior to report does not conform to the standard,the industry reflects the strong enterprise merger or afterapproved the merger of the assessment and approval of the declaration is carried,to see if law enforcement tool to select appropriate and timely understanding of the change of market forces.