Research On Legal Regulation Of New Internet Unfair Competitions

With the rapid development of the Internet technology,the conventional unfair competitions have changed due to the use of big data,cloud computing and artificial intelligence.Over the years,a number of new Internet unfair competitions have emerged,which are characterized by high technology,imperceptibility and transcendent time and space peculiar to the Internet,and thus can not be regulated by traditional regulations on unfair competition.The Law Against Unfair Competition has manifested too many problems in regulating new complicated Internet unfair competitions.The Law Against Unfair Competition revised in 2019,the exposure draft of the Stipulations on the Ban of Online Unfair Competition published in 2021（hereinafter referred to as the exposure draft）,and the interpretation made by the Supreme People’s Court on several issues about the Law Against Unfair Competition of the People’s Republic of China（hereinafter referred to as the judicial interpretation）,which was promulgated in 2022,have guided the regulations on new Internet unfair competitions.But they failed to make a breakthrough in regulating the new unfair competitions.The following problems remain to be solved: the rule setting of "Internet special terms" is relatively cursory;the court is overly reliant on general terms and conditions;differences exist in identification of competitive relations;the industry practices are improperly applied;and the benefit protection is unbalanced in judicial determination.In view of the above problems,this paper retrieves and screens judicial cases concerning Internet unfair competitions in recent five years,and then makes an empirical research and analysis of the above problems,thereby proposing the solutions.Part 1 of this paper introduces the basic theory of the new Internet unfair competitions,including the definition,characteristics,harmfulness and classification.Part 2 sorts out the legislative status of legal regulations on new Internet unfair competitions.To be specific,it sorts out the specific provisions on the Law Against Unfair Competition,Cyber-Safety Act,the exposure draft and the judicial interpretation.On this basis,it analyzes the current situation of legal regulations on new Internet unfair competitions in China.Part 3 conducts an empirical study on the judicial cases retrieved and screened.Through statistics and analysis on new Internet unfair competition cases in recent five years,it summarizes the dilemma faced by the legal regulations,including over reliance on general terms and conditions,differences in the identification of competitive relations,improper application of industry practices and unbalanced benefit protection in judicial identification.Based on the empirical analysis,Part 4 puts forward suggestions on the dilemma faced by the legal regulations: optimizing the rule setting of "Internet special terms",clarifying the status of competitive relations,correctly applying industry practices and exerting the role of interest measurement.In conclusion,this paper is based on empirical analysis of the new Internet unfair competitions to analyze the dilemma faced by the legal regulations,aiming to contribute to improvement of the legal regulations.