Converging Proposals for Platform Regulation in China, the EU and the U.S.: Comparison and Commentary

The fast expansion of the digital sector has raised regulatory attention across the world. In order to maintain a competitive market and to promote healthy and fair competition, major economies have come up with proposed legislative drafts to regulate digital platforms. This article offers a comparative view on those legislative drafts in China, European Union, and the United States, and submits suggestions for future revision for the Chinese drafts.

By Liyang Hou & Shuai Han^[1]

I. INTRODUCTION

As the greatest engine for economic growth in the recent history, digital platforms have transformed people’s ways of lives, and brought convenience as a standard. With innovated ways of doing businesses, platforms with the help of technology advances are now able to substantially bring down, if not to eliminate, transaction costs, by bypassing middleman and expanding business reach nation-wide or even world-wide. Consumers are now able to enjoy a wider range of products with reduced prices. More jobs are created as platforms increase opportunities and ways of doing businesses. Competitors in the traditional non-digital world certainly have different thoughts, however, as innovations and the fast expansion of their digital counterparts are threatening the very existence of their livelihood. Users, in particular business ones, are highly dependent upon those platforms, and hence have concerns over the influence exerted by platforms on their businesses.

Governments as wel