數據與互聯網領域經營者集中相關市場界定

Data and Market Definition of Internet-Based Businesses in Merger Review

在傳統反壟斷法理論和實踐下，對經營者集中的相關市場界定主要圍繞集中方的商品和服務展開，目前在互聯網領域亦是如此。對於數據，互聯網產品的經營者往往將其用於商品和服務的生產、改進和研發，而非直接出售。在此情況下，基於傳統反壟斷法理論的經營者集中審查不會針對數據進行相關市場界定。但是，數據對互聯網領域的競爭具有重要影響，因此有觀點認為應當針對數據界定「準相關市場」，以更好地評估數據對競爭產生的影響。本文的分析顯示，數據透過不同路徑影響互聯網領域的競爭，傳統反壟斷法理論的確會遺漏其中部分影響。但是，現有的相關市場界定方法和針對數據進行準相關市場界定的方法並不能有效地解決問題。更優的應對方式是對基於商品和服務進的相關市場界定進行調整，並關注數據與互聯網商品和服務之間的內在關係。

Under the conventional theory and practice of competition law, the focus of the relevant market definition in merger review is on the products and services of the merging parties. This is also the same for the Internet-based businesses realm at present. Instead of selling data directly, the providers of Internet-based goods usually use data to produce, improve and innovate the products and services. Under such circumstances, there would be no relevant market definition for data in the merger review process under the conventional competition analysis methods. However, as the importance of data on the competition of Internet-based business realm has been noticed, there are views that putative market for data should be defined to better capture the influence of data. The analysis of this article shows that data influence the competition of Internet-based businesses through different routes and the conventional analysis methods do miss some of them. However, the existing market definition methods and the proposition of defining putative market for data fail to provide effective solutions. A better way is to improve the market definition methods for products and services and to focus more on the inner relationship between data and the Internetbased goods.