On The Regulation On Concentration Of Undertakings In Online Platforms

In the development process of online platforms,they tend to seek a stronger market position through various means,and the concentration of undertakings has become a strengthening path favored by major platforms.Compared with the traditional economy,the concentration of online platform undertakings shows its particularity in the motivation and form of concentration.Changes in market structure,competition factors,and competition frequency have spawned a large number of centralized behaviors.Conglomerate merge and killer acquisitions have become the preferred form of concentration.These particularities make it difficult to effectively apply the existing regulatory system in the face of the concentration of online platform undertakings,and expose many problems,especially the unreasonable setting of the reporting mechanism,the difficulty in defining the relevant market,and the more complex competition assessment.The current reporting mechanism has already highlighted the lag in the face of the concentration of online platform undertakings.Therefore,it is necessary to guide the rational placement of supervisory forces by establishing compound reporting thresholds and adjusting the penalties for undeclared.Although the market structure,product model,and pricing strategy make it difficult to define the relevant market,as a pre-procedure of competition assessment,it is necessary to clarify the necessity of defining the relevant market,and determine the benchmark products and relevant market quantities through "demand substitution",and taking a reasonable view of the price substitution analysis limitations.The characteristics derived from the platform economy increase the difficulty of competition assessment.In order to achieve an accurate assessment of concentration,it is necessary to take "protecting effective competition" as the ultimate goal of the regulation of operator concentration,and "eliminate or seriously damage effective competition" as the principle of assessment.elements,give more attention to the competitive process and market structure,and incorporate data factors into the scope of the assessment.