Author Information

Ding Xiaodong,Professor at Renmin University of China Law School, Ph.D. Supervisor.

Abstract

The rise of mega Internet platforms may bring about problems such as market access barriers, self-preferential treatment, i mpact on users' rights, and irregular decision-making mechanisms, posing challenges to the regular regulation of platforms. While being corporate in nature, mega Internet platforms are characterized as market makers and quasi-public powers. However, the option of simpl y following the EU's Digital Marketplace Act and Digital Services Act to regulate mega Internet platforms as market infrastructures and q uasi-public powers is also deficient. Ex ante competition-neutral regulation may lead to over-regulation and unreasonable regulation, w hich is not in line with the general principles of competition law; quasi-public power regulation may have problems such as formalism an d incongruity with the basic principles of platform liability. Regularized regulation of mega Internet platforms should differentiate betwee n their different impacts in the economic, social, political and international spheres, adopting competition law regulation for economic im pacts, governance-type regulation with public-private partnership for social impacts, representative regulation in line with the will of the people for political impacts, and requiring platforms to safeguard national interests and assume the responsibility of building a communi ty of human destiny for international impacts.

Keywords: digital gatekeepers; competition neutrality ; platform power; digital market act ; digital services act