Regulating Technology Giants: A Re-Examination of Technical Power as a Factor in the Determination of Market Dominant Position
- Available Online: 2021-08-20
Abstract: How to effectively regulate technology giants has become an important task for the current revision of Antitrust Law. Although technical power is a traditional element of market dominant position, it has long been objectively misplaced and virtualized, making it more difficult to determine the market dominant position of technological giants and significantly underestimating the transmission effect of technological power itself. The impact of digital technology on market competition is different from before, and it affects the whole process of production and transaction through the three-dimensional structure framework of platform, data and algorithm of digital market. The technical power created by the combination of technology and the three-dimensional structure is extremely powerful, surpassing the traditional market power that mainly control prices and combining social and capital power to form a more solid market consolidation structure. In judging the market dominant position of technology giants, there is an urgent need to play an important role of technical power as a non-price-based identification factor. The inherent problem of misplacing and virtualizing technical power as a factor for determining market dominant position should be abandoned, and the weight of technical power in determining market dominant position should be increased, so as to return to a structural perspective and properly prevent the disorderly expansion of technological giants.