Internet antitrust has a new milestone: on 19 January, nine departments including the National Development and Reform Commission issued opinions on promoting the platform economy’s standardised, healthy and sustainable development, calling for lower operating costs for platform participants and an orderly, open platform ecosystem.
Sharing, connection and openness are the foundation of a healthy digital ecosystem – and the unique advantage of the digital economy over traditional industries. But some internet giants, chasing commercial interest, abused their market position to wall off territory, fragmenting a web that should be interconnected. With the traffic dividend fading and growth stalling, breaking down information silos and opening platform ecosystems is the way through. Calls for interoperability have grown steadily louder since the second half of 2021.
The MIIT launched a six-month special rectification campaign for the internet industry in July 2021, with blocked web links as a key target. In early September its information communication administration convened administrative guidance requiring platforms to unblock URLs to standard by 17 September.
These measures are not about breaking up big platforms, but about removing unreasonable artificial barriers – preserving the enormous value that platform scale brings while letting the digital economy integrate and flow through connectivity.
In the current strong-regulation environment, the era of making money by enclosing scenarios and monopolising users, data and traffic is gone for good. Companies should think about moving toward the future together with other platforms, growing the market through interoperability and innovation-driven technology, and finding new opportunities through new business models on a bigger traffic base and a broader ecosystem.
Interoperability is a major opportunity for the mobile internet’s future. ‘Connection’ returns the internet to its early open state: sites can be indexed by search engines, links can be shared freely across platforms, users face no artificial roadblocks, and traffic costs fall. ‘Interoperability’ lets internet companies and traditional companies genuinely collaborate – exchanging what each has, empowering with technology, supporting ecosystems and sharing the dividends of digitalisation and intelligence, with more multiplier effects.
Unblocking web links is only the first step. E-commerce, gaming, news, life services, online video and other vertical areas all need the same treatment. And interoperability must go beyond platform information and content to technology and ecosystems – only deep interoperability can truly revive the internet’s innovative vitality.
Platforms also face practical tests after the blockages come down: how to protect user privacy data, how to avoid settlement errors in cross-platform payments, and how to build win-win revenue-sharing systems. For internet companies, the harder exams are still ahead.
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