Study On The Definition Of Relevant Markets In The Abuse Of Dominant Market Position By Internet Companies

In the context of the rapid development of the Internet economy,competition among Internet enterprises differs from traditional enterprises in its mode,dimensions and characteristics.These differences make bring some new challenges to define the relevant market among Internet companies.Unlike traditional enterprises,which have a unilateral market model,Internet enterprises have a multilateral market model,which makes competition between Internet enterprises not only occur in one market,but also in multiple markets.In addition,the cross-network externality,lock-in effect,and emergence effect of Internet companies make it more complicated to analyze the relevant product markets of Internet companies.The definition of relevant markets in Internet companies is also complicated by the fact that they have more complex competition than traditional companies.In other words,the complexity of the competition model of the Internet companies’ platforms leads to the complexity of defining their relevant markets.At present,one of the ideas to solve the problem of defining the relevant market of Internet enterprises is to define the relevant market based on the platform-centered competition model of Internet enterprises and the characteristics of the products of Internet enterprises in each case.In other words,the following steps can be taken to define the relevant market under the characteristics of the multilateral market: firstly,when defining the relevant product market,the product should be identified first,and then the benchmark product market should be determined according to whether the multilateral market under the platform model is a transactional market or a non-transactional market.Second,after determining the benchmark product market,economic analysis is used to determine the boundaries of the product market.Finally,the geographic market is determined based on the actual geographic area that can be influenced by the competitiveness of the specific product of the Internet enterprise.This paper takes the proposition of defining the market related to the abuse of dominant position by Internet enterprises and discusses the difficulties faced by Internet enterprises in defining the relevant market from the perspective of the platform competition model of Internet enterprises,the dynamic competition,multilateral market,network externality and lock-in effect that Internet enterprises have,and explores the three levels of theoretical research,institutional regulation and implementation practice to investigate the platform of Internet enterprises Through theoretical research,institutional regulation and implementation practice,we explore the general idea of defining the relevant market under the competition model of Internet enterprises,and then provide useful experience on how to define the relevant market in Internet enterprises.The paper is divided into four parts as follows.In the first part,the characteristics of Internet enterprises and the characteristics of platform competition of Internet enterprises are mainly explained.The characteristics of Internet enterprises themselves make it necessary for them to adopt a platform competition model.The adoption of the platform model competition further aggravates the complexity of competition.Unlike traditional enterprises competing within one product market,the platform competition model allows competition among Internet enterprises to occur within multiple markets.The second part is an overview of the basic theory of relevant market definition in antitrust law.Firstly,the concept of relevant market in antitrust law is sorted out from the ontology.Secondly,the traditional methods of relevant market definition are sorted out from the methodological point of view.The current methods of relevant market definition are mainly divided into qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.Specifically,the qualitative analysis focuses on the range between consumers’ choices of similar products from the perspective of supply or demand.Quantitative methods,on the other hand,focus on the extent to which,for example,changes in price factors affect consumers’ choice of products and thus determine the range of products,such as the hypothetical person monopoly test method.In the third part,the challenges posed by the characteristics of platform competition of Internet companies to the definition of the relevant market are analyzed.The challenges posed by the characteristics of platform competition of Internet enterprises to the definition of relevant markets are divided into four main points: 1.how to determine the scope of competition occurring under the platform model with multilateral markets,and whether to select one market or multiple markets as the benchmark market for measuring the competitiveness of Internet enterprises;2.how to accurately define the scope of traditional definition methods under the product services and platform competition model provided by Internet enterprises;3..whether the platform model adopted by Internet enterprises constitutes an independent product market in itself.4.The Internet technology on which Internet enterprises rely tends to make the competitive influence of Internet enterprises’ products greater than that of traditional enterprises,and thus how to quasi-define the geographical scope of Internet enterprises in specific cases is also a new challenge.Part Ⅳ proposes solutions to the challenges posed by the characteristics of competition of Internet enterprises to the definition of relevant markets.1.define different markets as a benchmark market in the transactional multilateral market based on the relationship between platform users,and define multiple markets as benchmark product markets in the non-transactional multilateral market;2.improve the traditional definition methods that are not applicable to the definition of relevant markets for Internet enterprises.The definition of the relevant market for Internet companies can be improved by introducing other economic analysis methods,such as the profit source analysis,sales source analysis or product quality test method.3.distinguish the platform and product according to the productization of the platform interface.4.define the relevant geographical market with the specific Internet company products in each case.