Research On Legal Regulations For Blocking Online Video Advertisements

There is still considerable controversy in the theoretical and practical circles of our country as to whether the blocking behavior of online video advertising constitutes unfair competition.Before the revision of the Anti Unfair Competition Law,most judicial practices in China used general provisions as the basis for judging disputes over advertising shielding,and there was a trend of widespread moralization in the evaluation of the legitimacy of competitive behavior.Although the revised "Anti Unfair Competition Law" has added Internet provisions,it does not include advertising blocking behavior into the scope of specific types of provisions.Currently,in judicial practice,most decisions are made based on the "Internet specific clauses",which are not divorced from the subjective judgment of business ethics standards in essence.There is still a dilemma in the application of law in the judgment of the legitimacy of advertising shielding behavior.In addition,judges have formed a judgment thinking inertia of business model absolute rights protection during the judgment process,lacking consideration of multiple interests.The static view of competition that judges habitually hold often violates the inherent attributes and laws of market competition.Throughout the judicial practice in Germany and the United States,their judgments pay more attention to the consideration of the interests of consumers and respect the user’s right to make independent choices.Moreover,the concept of "judicial should carefully intervene in the market" advocated by them is also worth learning from in China.The following aspects should be considered for the improvement of legal regulations on advertising shielding in the future:First,refine relevant legal provisions to provide legal basis for advertising shielding.Secondly,judges should establish a neutral view of damage and a dynamic view of competition,and abandon the previous ideas of judging under the biased protection of operators and static competition.Thirdly,we should introduce the thinking method of interest measurement,place such disputes under the perspective of the principle of proportionality,and comprehensively measure the interests of multiple parties,so as to determine the legitimacy of advertising shielding behavior.