域外动态||CMA如何恢复数字广告市场竞争并保护用户

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is considering a range of interventions in digital advertising markets, among them obliging Google to share click and query data with rivals and imposing interoperability obligations on Facebook. 

英国竞争与市场管理局（CMA）正考虑对数字广告市场采取一系列干预措施，其中包括要求Google与竞争对手分享点击数据和查询数据，并对 Facebook 施加互操作性义务。

After a careful analysis, the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded that Google and Facebook dominate many online markets, including search, social media, search advertisement, display advertising, and open display advertising. The agency also concluded that while some of this concentration is due to specific market failures, these companies’ dominance is also due to a series of artificial barriers to entry and expansion of competitors that “if addressed through appropriate remedies (…) could profitably sustain competition between a number of” players.

经过仔细分析， CMA得出结论，Google和Facebook在许多在线市场占据主导地位，包括搜索、社交媒体、搜索广告、展示广告和开放式展示广告。该机构还认为，虽然这种集中有一部分原因是存在市场失灵，但这些公司的主导地位也是由一系列人为的进入壁垒和竞争对手的扩张导致的，“如果通过适当的补救措施加以解决，就可以维持一些参与者之间的竞争”。

The Remedies 

补救措施

The CMA is considering a set of potential remedies to increase the competition in digital markets. First, the CMA agreed with the Furman Review and the Stigler Report that the importance of digital markets, the evidence of market abuses, and the high pace of innovation justify the establishment of a specific regulatory agency with the powers to oversee search, social networks, online advertising, and other digital markets. It advocated for the creation of such a regulator, whose main goal would be to spur competition by diminishing barriers to entry and tackling the sources of Google’s and Facebook’s market power.

CMA正在考虑一系列可能的补救措施来增加数字市场的竞争。首先，CMA 同意 《Furman报告》和《Stigler报告》的观点，认为数字市场的重要性、市场滥用的证据以及高速的创新证明建立一个具体的监管机构是合理的，它有权监督搜索、社交网络、在线广告和其他数字市场。它主张建立一个监管机构，其主要目标是通过降低进入门槛和解决Google和Facebook的市场支配力的来源问题来刺激竞争。

Second, the CMA’s is considering imposing three types of remedies: (i) rules to govern how platforms with significant market power behave; (ii) rules to increase market transparency and increase consumer control over data; (iii) specific intervention to address the sources of market power and promote competition in online markets.

第二，CMA正考虑推行三类补救措施: (一)规制具有重大市场力量的平台如何运作的规则; (二)增加市场透明度和加强消费者对数据的控制的规则; (三)针对市场力量来源和促进网络市场竞争的具体干预措施。

Regarding the first, the CMA is proposing that the digital regulator require platforms to adopt enforceable codes of conduct on platforms considered as having “Strategic Market Status.” Companies would be deemed to have strategic market status when they hold durable market power in a given market over a large period of time and when they are competitive bottlenecks on which other companies depend to reach users or other companies.

关于第一个问题，CMA 建议数字监管机构要求平台在被认为具有“战略市场地位”的平台时采用可强制执行的行为守则。如果一家公司在一个特定市场上长期拥有持久的市场支配力，并成为其他公司赖以接触用户或其他公司的竞争瓶颈，那么这些公司将被视为具有战略性的市场地位。

These enforceable codes of conduct would need to address at least four areas: (i) the relationship between platforms, publishers, and advertisers in the sale of online ads; (ii) the relationship between platforms and content providers who rely on them to access users; (iii) the relationship between platforms and companies who both rely on them to access demand and compete directly with them; and (iv) the relationship between platforms and their users.

这些可强制执行的行为守则至少需要涉及四个方面: (i)平台、出版商和广告商在销售网络广告方面的关系; (ii)平台和依赖它们接触用户的内容提供商之间的关系; (iii)平台和依赖它们接触需求并与它们直接竞争的公司之间的关系; 以及(iv)平台与其用户之间的关系。

Each code would be particular to each platform and would be based on three principles: fair trading (the platform has to offer fair and equitable trading conditions), open choices (the platform cannot impose its services on users nor unduly restrict multi-homing and other similar practices), and trust and transparency (platforms must supply users and companies enough information for them to understand how the platform operates and how it impacts business. For example, it must report changes to algorithms in advance or better explain how it collects and processes user data).

每个平台都有其独特之处，共同遵守三个原则: 公平交易(平台必须提供公平和公正的交易条件)、开放选择(平台不能将其服务强加给用户，也不能过度限制多归属和其他类似做法)、信任和透明度(平台必须向用户和公司提供足够的信息，让他们了解平台的运作方式及其对业务的影响。例如，它必须提前报告算法更改，或者更好地解释它如何收集和处理用户数据)。

Regarding transparency and control over data, the CMA is considering changes to enable consumers to disable personalized advertising even on social media platforms, change defaults against personalized advertising, oblige interface testing so that consumers can better understand privacy alternatives, and create data mobility obligations through which platforms would be required to enable data interoperability as a way to promote competition.

CMA正在考虑在数据的透明度和控制方面作出改变，使消费者能够禁用社交媒体平台上的个性化广告，改变对个性化广告的默认、强制接口测试，以便消费者能够更好地理解隐私替代品，并创建数据移动义务，通过这些义务强制平台实现数据互操作性，以促进竞争。

Finally, on the sources of market power, the CMA is considering a range of interventions. These include: obliging Google to share click and query data with rivals, restricting it from buying default positions from rivals, requiring it to create a free screen that enables consumers to choose alternative default search engines (Google currently runs a paid auction), and potentially require Google to sell syndicated search results under FRAND conditions; Google imposing interoperability obligations on Facebook and restrict the company’s ability to degrade competitors. Interoperability obligations would not impact all functionalities but might, for example, enable competitors to create a meta-social network with many different services.

最后，关于市场力量的来源，CMA正在考虑采取一系列干预措施。这些措施包括：迫使Google与竞争对手共享点击和查询数据，限制其从竞争对手购买默认数据，要求其创建一个使消费者能够选择替代默认搜索引擎（Google目前正在进行付费出售）的免费平台，并可能要求Google在FRAND条件下出售Syndicated Search的结果；迫使Google对Facebook规定互操作性义务，并限制该公司降低竞争对手的能力。互操作性义务不会影响所有功能，但可能使竞争对手能够创建一个包含许多不同服务的社交网络。

The CMA’s report is still an interim report, which means that the agency is now asking for feedback on its conclusions and outlined remedies. All of these potential remedies will be further developed by the CMA when it concludes its market investigation by July of this year. This will also be when one can expect more forceful action by the British regulator against the many problems it has found in the UK’s digital markets.

CMA的这份报告仍然是一份临时报告，这意味着该机构现在正在征求对其结论的反馈意见，并概述了补救措施。所有这些潜在的补救措施将由CMA在今年7月结束市场调查时进一步研讨。这也是人们可以期待英国监管机构针对它在英国数字市场上发现的许多问题采取更有力行动的时候。