数字平台个性化定价的反垄断规制

Anti-Monopoly Regulation on the Personalized Pricing of Digital Platform

数字平台的个性化定价近年来受到国内外的广泛关注,但人们对此的看法并不一致。实际上,其既存在产出扩张、竞争强化、动态适配、福利补贴的积极效应,也会有剩余榨取、公平感剥夺和信息不对称的消极影响。就消极效应而言,个人信息保护法与消费者权益保护法的规制范围有限。市场机制仍应发挥重要作用,故作为规范市场竞争行为基本法的反垄断法也有介入的必要。反垄断法应当由原先的单向度评价模式转变为三向复合规制模式,从而引导数字平台对个性化定价去弊存利。

In recent years,personalized pricing of digital platform has attracted wide attention,but people have different views on it.There are positive effects of output expansion,competition strengthening and dynamic adaptation.Output expansion refers to that personalized pricing can improve the market equilibrium output.Competition strengthening means that personalized pricing strengthens the competition of the platform for users with different preferences.Dynamic adaptation refers to that there is an efficient matching of supply and demand.There are also negative effects of surplus extraction,deprivation of a sense of fairness and information asymmetry.Surplus extraction means that the platform can greatly exploit consumers.Deprivation of a sense of fairness means that consumers can only be forced to accept inconsistent pricing and are deprived of the opportunity to participate in price negotiation.Information asymmetry is that consumers do not know whether they are the exploited party or the subsidized party.In terms of negative effects,the regulation scope of personal information protection law and consumer protection law is limited.The market mechanism should still play an important role,so it is necessary for the anti-monopoly law,as the basic law to regulate market competition.Differential treatment in anti-monopoly law can only evaluate exploitative abuse.It is difficult to regulate the exclusive abuse and distorted abuse in personalized pricing.In this regard,the anti-monopoly law should change the original one-way evaluation pattern into a three-way compound regulation pattern,and should regulate the resale restriction of the platform.Specifically,based on the three types of competition damage that personalized pricing may produce—exclusive abuse,exploitative abuse and distorted abuse,the three-way compound regulation pattern is constructed to distinguish different types of competition damage.For exclusive abuse,the evaluation pattern of“differential treatment+predatory pricing”is adopted;for exploitative abuse,the evaluation pattern of“differential treatment+excessive pricing”is adopted;and for distorted abuse,only“differential treatment”is adopted.Government should encourage the platform to build a bargaining and auction mechanism to conduct fair transactions with consumers,so as to guide the digital platform to eliminate the disadvantages and save the advantages of personalized pricing.