Zhejiang Provincial Market Supervision Bureau has officially released the country’s first provincial-level local standard for Internet platform enterprise competition compliance (DB33/T 2511-2022).
There are 310 online platforms in Zhejiang, where more than 11 million suppliers provide their goods and services — nearly half of the total in all of China. The standard aims to strengthen the accountability of platforms with regard to the entities operating on them, as well as to achieve their self-regulation under the supervision of the government.
The document mentions such common phenomena as Internet platform enterprises’ “self-preferential treatment”, price discrimination, algorithm abuse, compulsion to exclusive cooperation, etc. The appendix categorizes platforms and lists the specific risks inherent in online platforms.
Before posting the draft standard for public consultation, the working group sent the text to major technology companies, including Alibaba and NetEase, which made adjustments. At the same time, Zhejiang Province announced plans to be the first in China to create a zone for enhanced implementation of fair competition policy within the province: previously, such pilot projects were created only within free trade zones.
By 2025 the plan is to build an effective competition policy, increase the awareness of market actors of all types, markedly reduce the number of violations and bring the level of public satisfaction with the state of competition to 95% or higher.
Sources: Weixin
