Legal Analysis Of Differentiated Pricing On E-commerce Platform

With the advent of the digital era,emerging technologies such as algorithms and big data have gradually penetrated into the daily lives of citizens.E-commerce platforms implement differentiated pricing behaviors for platform consumers by virtue of their technological and data advantages.Differentiated pricing behavior of ecommerce platforms refers to the pricing behavior that operators in e-commerce platforms use algorithms,big data and other technologies to conduct data analysis on consumers’ consumption habits,payment ability and choice preferences,carry out "digital portrait" for consumers,and implement different charging standards or pricing policies for the same products or services according to the data analysis results.The differentiated pricing behavior of e-commerce platforms is characterized by technology,complexity,dynamics and concealment,which is quite different from the traditional differentiated pricing behavior.At the same time,differentiated pricing behavior should be distinguished from dynamic pricing behavior,and differentiated pricing behavior should not be simply equated with big data killing familiarity behavior,which is only one of the manifestations of differentiated pricing behavior.There are disputes about the legal nature of differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms in the academic circle.Generally speaking,there are three viewpoints: the first viewpoint believes that differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms is price discrimination;The second view is that differentiated pricing of e-commerce platforms is price fraud;The third view is that differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms is an abuse of algorithmic technology.The author believes that differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms is essentially the abuse of algorithm technology,and the ultimate purpose of this behavior is to grab consumers’ surplus value as much as possible and exploit consumers’ welfare.On the surface,the differentiated pricing behavior of e-commerce platform seems to be the marketing means of e-commerce platform,which has a certain legitimacy,but in fact,this behavior has a negative impact on consumers and society,which is not legitimate.From the perspective of consumers,differentiated pricing damages consumers’ right of equality and infringes their personal dignity.From the social point of view,differentiated pricing is contrary to the concept of social fairness and justice,and damages the overall social welfare.At present,Chinese law also does not stipulate that e-commerce platforms enjoy differentiated pricing right.E-commerce platforms use the personal information of consumers they have mastered to evaluate the reserve price of consumers by introducing algorithm technology,and implement differentiated pricing to consumers according to the evaluation results.This process perfectly combines the three "new elements" of the new technology era: personal information,algorithm technology and Internet platform.Therefore,the operation mode of differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms can be summarized as: collect user data,form user portraits,and conduct differentiated pricing.In this process,consumer personal information provides data support for differentiated pricing of e-commerce platform,algorithm technology provides technical support for differentiated pricing of e-commerce platform,and Internet platform provides platform support for differentiated pricing of e-commerce platform.When algorithm technology and Internet platform are applied to e-commerce transactions,a series of negative effects are generated,such as consumer personal information is infringed,algorithm black box and algorithm discrimination are prominent,algorithm power is difficult to restrict,platform power alienation,platform lack of normative management,etc.The differentiated pricing behavior of e-commerce platforms is different from that of traditional offline transactions,which makes the algorithm consumer damage have different characteristics from the traditional consumer damage,and brings new challenges to the existing legal norms.At present,there are many problems in the regulation of differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms,such as the difficulty in the application of existing laws and regulations,the lack of specific regulations,and the difficulty in protecting the rights of users.In order to solve these difficulties,the author puts forward the regulation methods of differentiated pricing on e-commerce platforms from four perspectives: improving the protection system of consumer personal information,promoting the algorithm governance of e-commerce platforms,strengthening the management of e-commerce platforms,and establishing the protection system of consumer rights and interests of e-commerce platforms.