Research On The Self-Preferencing Behavior Of Internet Platform By Anti-monopoly Law

Nowadays,the platform economy is developing rapidly in China,and various types of platforms cover various fields of social economy,becoming the most important market entity and organizational form in the development of China’s digital economy.However,due to the uniqueness of the platform economy,many large Internet platform enterprises treat themselves preferentially in practice,but there is still a lack of systematic and specific regulations on the self-preferencing behavior of the platform,the identification of the nature of the behavior and the regulation of such issues need to be resolved.The self-preferencing of the platform is usually manifested as the platform operator with a dominant position in the market makes use of its advantageous position in providing platform services,and gives preferential treatment to its own products or services through a series of differential operations on the platform in the process of competition with other operators,so as to gain a competitive advantage for itself.At present,self-preferencing of Internet platforms manifested in the form of blocking and subsidizing,and its impact is mainly manifested in three aspects: damaging the fair competition rights of other market participants,strengthening of the platform’s own monopoly position,and harming the interests of consumers.The extensive influence of self-preferencing determines the necessity of regulating it,and the regulation of the self-preferencing of the platform also conforms to the legislative objective and legislative trend of the Anti-Monopoly Law.In order to regulate the platform’s self-preferential behavior,it is obviously necessary to comply with the legal requirements stipulated in the Anti-Monopoly Law,that is,the platform must have a dominant position in the relevant market,and the platform must abuse its dominant position and cause the effect of affecting competition..In the confirmation of the market dominance of the Internet platform,this paper believes that it can be examined from three perspectives: the platform’s operator,consumer and market competition.From the perspective of the platform’s operators,the dominant position of operators in terms of technical strength should be mainly considered;from the perspective of consumers,the dominant position of “user stickiness” should be considered,which can be quantified as the number of users and the time of use;From the perspective of market competition,the platform’s influence on its upstream and downstream markets and the degree of market competition between upstream and downstream can be considered.In the analysis of the illegality of the selfpreferential behavior,we should focus on the definition of the right of self-management of the platform and the determination of the legitimate reasons.The operator has the obligation not to infringe the legal rights of other subjects when exercising the right of self-management,and the defense of "Just Cause" can not go beyond the basic framework of public interests.The identification of the nature of self-preferencing should include an analysis of its extension and connotation,and its manifestations actually include behaviors such as preferential treatment of oneself,demotion of competitors,or even shielding,and may also take a variety of the aforementioned behaviors at the same time.However,these series of behaviors all serve a unified goal,that is,to transmit their market advantages to make their own or related products or services gain advantages in market competition.Therefore,Article 17 of the "AntiMonopoly Guidelines on Platform Economy" stipulates that it is most reasonable to include the platform’s self-preferencing into the differential treatment of abuse of market dominance.As for the legal regulation of self-preferencing,China is mainly based on the Antimonopoly Law and supplemented by the anti-monopoly policy of platforms,but the current legal regulation in China still has the problems of unclear connotation of self-preferencing,over-reliance on post-event regulation and lack of systematic integration.The EU has introduced the concept of “gatekeeper” in the(Digital Market Act(DMA),which imposes the obligation of “gatekeeper” not who are not allowed to treat themselves and comes with a huge fine;and the US has introduced the "America’s Choice and Innovation Online Act" and the "Ending Platform Monopoly Act" to specifically regulate the self-preferential behavior of platforms.The U.S.,on the other hand,has restricted the self-preferencing of large platforms with the American Choice and Innovation Online Act and the Ending Platform Monopolies Act,which even prohibit platforms from conducting their own business.The case of Google Shopping is a typical case of platform self-preferencing,in which the EU’s analysis of the relevant market and the determination of Google’s abusive behavior provided a model for the regulation of self-preferencing,and also provided experience for China.The author proposes the following suggestions for the regulation of platform selfpreferencing: firstly,the regulatory legislation of platform’s self-preferencing should be improved,the connotation of self-preferencing should be clarified,and the regulatory rules of self-preferencing should be refined;secondly,we should supplement the ex post regulation with ex-ante regulation and enterprise self-regulation;finally,the platform anti-monopoly regulation system should be constructed.Finally,we should actively build a platform antitrust regulation system,on the policy level,the platform anti-monopoly policy should be systematically integrated,and on the practical level,we should build a cooperative platform antitrust regulation system with other departments,so as to better realize the regulation of platform’s self-preferencing and realize the sound development of platform economy.