The Monopoly and Governance of the Platform Economy in the Digital Era

Abstract

The platform economy has become a new engine and leading force for China’s economic development. With the rapid development of super internet platforms, this field has drawn growing attention from attention of anti-monopoly authorities. The technical attributes and business characteristics of the platform economy endow those platforms with a “natural” monopoly advantage, and the quasi-public attributes of the internet platforms require anti-monopoly authorities to bear more monopoly governance responsibilities. This paper analyzes the difficulties in monopoly governance of the platform economy from the perspectives of anti-monopoly legislation, government regulation and global monopoly governance, and proposes several solutions and suggestions to improve the effectiveness of anti-monopoly governance and promote healthy development of the digital economic ecology. The solutions and suggestions include: focusing on building up technologybased regulatory capabilities, accelerating the legislation on data protection of data, and developing an anti-monopoly system based on the principle of giving priority to innovation.

Keywords

• platform economy
• monopoly
• governance