Meng Tianguang: The technical value, real difficulty point and breakthrough path of the open API interface in the platform "Interconnection"

Zhongxin Jingwei September 7th.

Author Meng Tianguang Tsinghua University Calculation Social Science and National Governance Laboratory Deputy Director

In 2021, China started the "year of Internet antitrust substance." From the "Anti -Monopoly Guide of the State Council's Anti -Monopoly Committee on the Platform Economic Field" to "Regulations on the Prohibition of Online Unfair Competition (Draft for Public Solutions)", to the "Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China释 An interpretation of several issues (drafts for comments) ", a series of measures have been introduced to provide institutional specifications for the Internet's antitrust and promoting fair market competition. Among them, external link unlocking is the primary content of the current antitrust work. Because the essential attributes of the Internet are openness and interoperability, each platform is banned from each other. There are no legitimate reasons to limit the identification, analysis and normal access of external URL links, which actually disrupts the order of the Internet market. In September 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology led the "interconnection and interoperability" of the platform. The core purpose was to break the interoperability barrier formed by the large platform as the center, and curb the large platforms to use the network, data, algorithms, capital advantages, and platform rules to engage in large platforms. The abuse of market dominance to eliminate and restrict competition to promote fair competition in the platform economy. The "Anti -Monopoly Act (Amended Draft)", which was formally implemented from August 1, 2022, was regarded as a positive corresponding corresponding to regulating restrictions on competitive behaviors in the context of the development of the digital economy.

In the field of Internet platforms, "interconnection" is a concept extending from technology to economy. From the perspective of technical dimensions, interconnection is committed to solving the problem of "application layer" in the five-story structure of the Internet "physical layer-data link layer-network layer-transmission layer-application layer", that is, each Internet platform is split and fragmented Existing problems. Economic dimension is the natural extension of interoperability in technology concepts. Due to each other's independence between Internet platforms, an environment that controls users on the content and services of web pages on the wireless network, namely "Walled Gardens".

Building the "Wall Garden" is an important means for Internet giants at home and abroad to play with each other. By consolidating the profit foundation of the platform by consolidating the platform's profitable system by increasingly entered a closed use system. Globally, Apple has built the strongest "wall garden". As the most closed smartphone operating system, the iOS system has formed a highly integrated state in the three aspects of hardware, software and services. Apple mobile phone users are also circled in an independent Apple system at the same time: on the one hand, Apple mobile phone devices are unwilling Open service access such as third -party payment; on the other hand, the software and service ecosystems controlled by their controls do not expand to equipment other than Apple mobile phones.

In China, ordinary users have also suffered from the two major Internet platforms of Ali and Tencent. For a long time in the past, WeChat has not unblock the interface of WeChat in the interface of Taobao in the point -to -point and group chat scene, resulting in the unable to access the external link from the Taobao platform. Turn on. In recent years, the pages of Douyin and Flying Books such as bytes beating have not been shared on the platforms such as Tencent's WeChat and QQ spaces, which brings inconvenience to the use of many users. As a application technology, the "interconnection and interconnection" actually broke the monopoly behavior of platform companies to eliminate and restrict competition, re -open the right to select ordinary users, and open a fair competition channel for small and medium platforms from the technical level.

There are three progressive levels of "interconnection": first open the external link, follow the open API interface, and finally open and allow data flow migration. At present, the "interconnection" promoted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology focuses on solving the problem of blocking the external chain between the platforms, and has not officially involved the opening of the API interface. However, some scholars pointed out that achieving "interconnection" does not mean that each platform opens its own technical system, but is provided to the other party to implement interdependent interfaces, that is, the Application Programming Interface (API). API is a computing interface, which is used to define the interaction between multiple software agents, and the types of calls (call) or requests that can be performed. What are the practice of follow.

API has important technical value for "interconnection". A API can be completely customized, that is, designed for a certain Internet platform, and can also be designed based on industry standards to ensure a stable interoperability mechanism between each platform. In the economic field of the Internet platform, the interoperability mechanism is mainly used for the market supply of complementary products, but does not involve alternatives. Only by visiting the API of a platform can we use the user data and platform resources of the platform to provide complementary alternatives to its functions. In practice, WeChat is used as a communication platform and Taobao as a purchasing platform to form two kinds of complementary supply to meet different needs of users. Therefore, the platform's "interconnection" is mainly technically reflected in the open API of the platform operator, allowing others to access its own platform system and access data according to authority. Although there are many years of external link blocking between Tencent and Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, etc. As Tencent's "嫡 尽" platform, can call WeChat API interfaces. The form of a text card sharing product links, and logging in directly in the form of WeChat accounts, which enhances the convenience of users to switch between several platforms. The use of API to break data interconnection fence is currently the fastest and efficient technical method. From a technical point of view, the platform developers need to do the ability to modify the previously defined functions and provide applications to access a set of routine. After sorting out domestic and foreign cases, we found that the Internet platform that closes or visits the API for application developers is mainly social platforms, such as China's WeChat and Facebook in the United States. As social platforms present a variety of needs of users (such as dating, learning, shopping, etc.), the most likely to form a super platform or meta platform at the top of the top ecosystem of the network. Theoretically, it can use the innate platform advantages The business of this "department" is expanded horizontally to all fields, and social platforms are subjective tendency to believe that the access to all applications to all applications is to "cultivate opponents competitiveness", which makes the opening of the API interface facing a lot of actual operations facing a lot of actual operations. Difficulty and further triggered discussions on the rationality, data security, and corporate costs:

Starting from the perspective of antitrust, the rule of the open API is the unreasonable behavior that the API interface refuses to open the API interface as a legally refused to open the API interface. Open API interface meets the requirements of "interconnection and interoperability", but because API technology involves complex application scenarios, from the perspective of the practical experience of various countries, the large platform and other platforms need to break through related difficulties in the API level. There are studies, we propose the following breakthrough paths from the aspects of technology, law, regulatory system:

First, accelerate the construction of a new ecological system that can cope with the API interface. At present, large platform companies such as Tencent and Ali have formed a more standardized and mature technical system on their platforms. Technical guarantee capabilities to ensure that oversized platforms and other platforms are connected at the API level.

Second, the implementation, content, and degree of "interoperability mechanism" in legal and policy texts are clear. The current "Anti -Monopoly Act (Amended Draft)" classifies three behaviors to "monopoly behaviors": operators have reached monopoly agreements, operators abuse their market dominance status, and may have or may have or may have the concentration of operators who have eliminated and restrict competitive effects. Under the economy and ecology of my country's Internet platform, there may be a problem of overlapping standards between the above three "monopoly behaviors" and "freedom of transaction", so that the open API interface faces legal identification problems. Due to the customization of APIs, the "interoperability mechanism" between platforms can clearly clarify relevant standards through legal and policies, that is, how to set up open API interfaces in which aspects are available to how much function complement each other. Clarify the "mutual exercise" standards to solve the problem of "exclusion and restricting competition behavior".

Third, strengthen the supervision mechanism of the platform's implementation of interoperability and data security obligations. On the one hand, the opening of the API interface of the oversized platform must be performed by the relevant regulatory agencies and after the filing. The changes of interface opening should be strictly supervised and tracked to prevent the platform from unilaterally abandon mutual operation obligations and destroy market fair competition. On the other hand, the interoperability mechanism between platforms should strictly abide by the bottom line of data security, and relevant regulatory agencies can intervene in the monitoring and evaluation of data security risks in administrative intervention or technical intervention, and provide network security and user equity under the "interconnection interoperability". External protection. (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)

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