反垄断视野下的平台封禁行为研究

Research on Behavior of Platform Blocking from an Anti-Monoply Perspective

数字经济时代下,为留存用户流量、提高市场地位,互联网平台企业对竞争对手广泛实行平台封禁行为,表现为不予直链、屏蔽链接、拒绝平台接入等。此类行为兼具收益性与技术性,可能促进市场竞争,也可能破坏竞争秩序、抑制创新和损害消费者权益。由于平台企业具有经营者和管理者的“二元身份”,应引入公法规范对其进行规制。在当前法律适用“碎片化”,以及《反不正当竞争法》《电子商务法》和《消费者权益保护法》等其他法律各有显著缺陷的情形下,应从《反垄断法》出发,并结合国务院发布的规范性文件,利用滥用市场支配地位条款规制平台封禁行为。首先,在平台“零价格竞争”模式下,由于缺少有效价格信息,可利用以用户数量、盈利模式为主要参考因素的定性分析法界定相关市场;其次,结合份额推定和其他要素判断企业是否具有市场支配地位;最后,着眼于拒绝交易行为,基于用户注意力这一机会成本的交换完成“交易”的性质认定,并考察正当理由和竞争行为的综合效果,判断封禁行为是否构成滥用市场支配地位。

In the era of the digital economy,in order to retain user traffic and increase their market power,Internet platform enterprises have widely implemented platform blocking on competitors,such as refusing direct linking,blocking linking and cutting off API access.These behaviors are both prof-itable and technical,which may foster competition,but can also undermine the competitive order,restrain innovation and impair the rights and interests of consumers.Due to their dual identity of an operator and a regulator,platform enterprises should be regulated by public laws.Confronted with the fragmentation of application of laws and significant deficiencies of other laws,like An-ti-Unfair Competition Law,Electronic Commerce Law and Consumer Protection Law,Anti-Monopoly Law and normative documents issued by the State Council are supposed to be used to regulate platform blocking behavior through clauses on the abuse of market dominance.Firstly,under the“zero price competition”model of platforms,due to the lack of effective price information,qualita-tive analyses using the number of users and profit models as the main reference factors can be used to define the relevant markets.Secondly,whether the enterprise has a dominant market po-sition is determined by combining the presumption of share and other elements.Finally,with a focus on the refusal to trade,the nature of the“transaction”is identified based on the exchange of opportunity costs such as user attention,and the comprehensive effect of legitimate reasons and competitive behaviors is examined to determine whether the blocking behavior constitutes an abuse of market dominance.