China cracks down on big tech, proposes new guidelines on Internet platforms’ responsibilities
China’s market regulator has proposed a long list of
responsibilities it said that it wanted the country’s Internet platforms to
uphold, in the latest effort by Beijing to establish an oversight framework for
its technology sector.
In a statement, the State Administration for Market
Regulation for the first time defined what it considered to be “super large
platforms,” saying more would be expected from them, especially in the areas of
data protection, treatment of workers and fair competition.
Such super large platforms are defined as those having more
than 500 million users, a wide range of business types, and a market value of
more than 1 trillion yuan — a description that would apply to the likes of
Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings and Meituan.
The responsibilities outlined relate to issues for which
these companies have already been criticized over the past year as part of a
wide-ranging crackdown by Chinese regulators.
The regulator said that super large platforms should abide
by the principles of fairness when offering services and should open their
services up to other platform operators. They should not obtain data without
users’ consent and should be transparent when using big data to recommend
products.
It said that these were draft guidelines, which were open to
public consultation until Nov. 8.
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