China released new anti-monopoly protocols on Sunday to deal with the country’s tech giants, Reuters reports. The guidelines, which finalize the draft law originally released in November, are designed to “stop monopolistic behavior in the platform economy and protect fair competition in the market,” according to China’s state administration for market regulation.
These rules would prohibit China’s leading technology giants, such as Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, from participating in many of the old practices in the marketplace. Some of these include forcing traders to choose from the country’s largest internet service providers, slowing down technological innovation, manipulating the market using data and algorithms, and price fixing, Reuters said.
Such practices have long gone unchecked given the government’s hands-off approach to the business side of the Internet, but have become increasingly scrutinized in recent months. Chinese regulators in particular launched an antitrust investigation into the Alibaba Group in December about the alleged anti-competitive practices of the e-commerce giant.
However, it’s been a bit of an uphill battle so far. In a Q&A published alongside its new protocols, the Chinese market regulator noted that it was struggling to enforce regulations and comprehensive reforms.
“The behavior is more disguised, the use of data, algorithms, platform rules, etc., makes it more difficult to discover and determine what monopoly deals are,” said Reuters.
G / O Media can receive a commission
But these guidelines certainly seems like a promising first step to it matter.
[Reuters]