Business Story: Giant'S "Breaking Down The Wall" And Returning To Its Original Intention

On the first day of removing the blocking of websites, how about the promotion of interconnection among major platforms? I'm afraid it's not as smooth as the outside world thinks.

On September 17, according to the requirements of the Ministry of industry and information technology of the people's Republic of China, all major Internet platforms should officially remove the blocking of Web links. However, the 21st century economic report reporter found that "intermediate roles" such as "Taobao password" still exist, whether it is wechat or QQ, and users cannot forward and share with one click. As of the time of publication, you can normally visit the shaking tone links in QQ and wechat, but the links of Taobao, Xianyu and tmall are still unable to open.

In addition to the chaos of "password flying all over the sky", the source information or account number can not be found on the search engine, which also makes some users feel confused. "Every time you want to search information, you have to divide it into two parts, which need to be searched in the search engine and wechat articles respectively." a user told the 21st century economic reporter.

Recently, the office of the State Council of the people's Republic of China held a press conference, stressing that under the various forms of administrative guidance of the Ministry of industry and information technology, enterprises should, in accordance with the requirements of rectification and reform, practically promote different types of problems, such as instant messaging, blocking website links, and solve the problems step by step and in stages. At the press conference, Zhao Zhiguo, director of the information and communication administration bureau of the Ministry of industry and information technology, said that restricting the identification, analysis and normal access of website links without justifiable reasons has affected the user experience, damaged the rights and interests of users and disrupted the order of competition.

It is understood that the participants included Alibaba, Tencent, byte jump, Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, Momo, 360, Netease, etc. At present, there are many platform enterprises including Alibaba, Tencent, byte jump and so on. Wechat said on the 17th through the public account "wechat faction", that users can access external links in one-to-one chat scenes after upgrading the version since the 17th, and continue to develop functions to facilitate users' personalized selection and set up an external chain complaint portal.

However, at present, wechat has not released the timetable for the launch of the new version.

The basic purpose of IP address invention is Internet Interconnection- Visual China

Users complain about "password flying all over the sky"

For users, all kinds of passwords are no longer unfamiliar. "It should be a very simple sharing, but it has to copy the password, copy to the chat box and other actions. It's extremely inconvenient. It's really disgusting." some users told the 21st century economic reporter frankly.

To a certain extent, this design of blocking external link sharing everywhere makes many users give up sharing. A student complained to the 21st century economic report reporter that sometimes a friend shared an article on an external platform and just wanted to browse it briefly. However, when clicking on wechat, he found that he still needed to "open it with a browser". When he met with poor network speed, he was very impatient and simply did not read it

Therefore, the Ministry of industry and information technology asked the major platforms to remove the blocking of Web site links, which is quite popular. Ms. Xie, who has already worked, told the 21st century economic reporter that she fully agreed with the regulatory action. (in the past) it was very troublesome. If you want to send what you want to buy to your friends for reference, you have to quit Taobao and replace it with wechat. Then your friends have to copy on wechat and open Taobao again. This process is very unreasonable. "

Aunt Wang, 66, said that she had never been able to use all kinds of passwords, so she was looking forward to the day when she could directly click into the link to view the products on wechat. "Every time you send something, you take a screenshot, and then you search the keywords on it. It's very hard."

In addition, some users told the 21st century economic reporter that they had more expectations for the platform interconnection. Ms. Wang pointed out that some important information and public accounts are difficult to find on Baidu, so they have to jump to wechat and other content platforms (search), but the search experience of wechat is not as good as Baidu, so it is very inconvenient.

In the view of the user, the platform can only use the platform products through the link screening, which is not from the perspective of users. In fact, a recent survey by China consumer daily shows that the platform ban has an impact on more than 90% of the respondents, and more than 70% of the respondents think that the platform ban will infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.

It is reported that, according to the compliance standards previously disclosed by the Ministry of industry and information technology, instant messaging software with the function of external website link access should maintain the same display and access form for the website links of the same type of products or services shared by users. At the same time, users send and receive legitimate Web site links in instant messaging, and click the links, Open directly in the form of page in the application; It is not allowed to attach additional operation steps to a specific product or service URL link, and users cannot be required to manually copy the link and go to the system browser to open it.

However, from the current situation, in the first day of removing the blocking of the website, the progress is not ideal. As of press release, the commodities and videos shared by 21st century economic report reporters from Taobao, shuoyin, Xianyu and other commonly used mobile phone apps still need passwords to be sent to wechat and QQ. By copying the link, you can only open the shared audio and video. The links of Taobao, Xianyu and tmall are not open.

In addition, the current experience of multiple users is not consistent. A user of the non bank of China iPhone told reporters that in her wechat, she even copied the link of shaking tone video, and after opening, it was still a prompt to copy the website address to the browser.

The specific timetable still needs to be clarified

Prior to that, Tencent, Alibaba and byte jump platforms responded positively to the decision made by the Ministry of industry and information technology on the day of the end of the press conference on blocking links to websites.

Tencent said that it firmly supports the decision of the Ministry of industry and information technology and will implement it step by step step under the premise of safety as the bottom line. Alibaba responded that Internet is the original intention of the Internet, and openness is the foundation of digital ecology. Alibaba will face the future together with other platforms in accordance with the relevant requirements of the Ministry of industry and information technology.

Byte skipping indicates that ensuring the normal access of legitimate Web links is a basic requirement for the development of the Internet, which is related to the rights and interests of users, market order and industry innovation and development. Byte skipping will seriously implement the decision of the Ministry of industry and information technology, and call on all Internet platforms to take action, make clear the timetable and actively implement it, so as to provide users with a safe, reliable and convenient network space, so that users can really enjoy the convenience of interconnection.

The latest statement given by wechat on the 17th is that users can access external links in one-to-one chat scenes since the 17th. However, at present, wechat has not released the timetable for the launch of the new version. There is still a long way to go for the platform side from "speaking up" to "stepping forward".

However, in the view of many analysts, whether from the perspective of users or the industry, it is the general trend to remove the shielding chain and platform interconnection. Chen Bing, Professor of the Law School of Nankai University and director of the competition law research center of Nankai University, pointed out that the interconnection between platforms has a long-term good vision, in which all parties involved may gain gains.

"For the platform itself, by absorbing the business of the third-party platform, the platform can not only further enrich its ecosystem, but also improve the diversity and quality of data when its own traffic approaches the peak value, which will facilitate the exploration of data dividends, further strengthen algorithm training, and improve the overall operation efficiency of the platform," Chen Bing said, "For third-party platforms, sharing traffic and data from large platforms can help them accumulate user traffic and key data faster, realize positive feedback loops, and fully stimulate market competition."

Qiu Qiong, vice president of the Research Institute of China international e-commerce center, pointed out to reporters of the 21st century economic report that the opening of the head platforms to each other is not a simple "compromise measure", "In fact, from a deeper level, this is not only an important turning point for the business model of the Internet economy from" free + charging "to" open innovation ", but also an inevitable move for the development of platform economy from" brutal predatory competition "to" open and win-win competition ". It also means that the direction of the state's supervision of the platform economy has changed from" standardized development "to" open and interconnected "

Qiu Qiong further analyzed that, with the ceiling of network traffic reaching the top, the economic and market pattern of consumer Internet platform has basically been finalized. The flow harvesting of "free" part has also been basically finalized after experiencing the fission of social segmentation, content explosion, and team leader Empowerment under the background of mobile Internet. Therefore, relying on the value-added services provided by the "charging" part becomes the key to improve the core competence of the platform economy.

"In this context, if the platform economy continues to collide and devour each other, it will only accelerate their own demise and collapse." Qiu Qiong said bluntly, "opening up and cooperation can achieve win-win results."

Call for return to the spirit of the Internet

In 1969, the Internet was born. In 1994, China first connected to the Internet and became a member of the Internet family.

Now nearly 30 years later, China has become an important pole of the global Internet. According to the latest data released by China Internet Network Information Center, as of June 2021, the number of Internet users in China has broken through 1 billion, reaching 1.011 billion, an increase of 21.75 million compared with December 2020, and the Internet penetration rate has reached 71.6%, 1.2 percentage points higher than that in December 2020.

In more than 20 years, the Internet companies that once "hobbled" have grown into giants. However, with the birth of the giants, it is a split, is its own way, is a number of isolated islands.

In 2013, Taobao officially blocked the visits from wechat. Since then, wechat stopped directing Taobao links in the application to Taobao website, and closed-loop shielding was completed. Since April 2018, Twitter has been banned from wechat, and the twitter links shared by users in wechat can not be played normally.

In August 2020, shaking tone officially announced that, from September 6, 2020, the third-party platform source commodity live sharing needs to match the live broadcast with goods to reach the person through the massive star map platform; From October 9, goods from third-party sources will no longer be supported to enter the shopping cart in the live room; Small store platform source goods are not affected.

Perhaps, in the city strategy of killing red eye, everyone has begun to forget the essence of the Internet spirit: openness, equality, cooperation, speed and sharing. Once the father of the world wide web, Bernard Lee, gave up his patent on the world wide web and did not develop any commercial products based on the world wide web. It is precisely because of his worry about impeding the popularization of the Internet and the free flow of information.

On the other hand, foreign information platforms are less likely to block sharing links and restrict users from forwarding. All kinds of service providers can forward freely on Facebook, and the links outside platforms such as youtube and twitter can freely add access.

In addition, foreign regulatory level has also issued a series of measures on platform interconnection. In December 2020, the European Union put forward the draft of the digital market act and put forward the concept of "gatekeeper". According to the draft, the obligations of "gatekeeper" include opening up the ecosystem, giving users and their authorized third parties the right to access data and providing convenience for access, and not technically restricting end users from switching between different apps or services.

In January this year, the German anti restricted competition law was revised for the tenth time, adding new provisions on interoperability: the abuse of operators whose competition has a crucial cross market impact includes refusing or hindering the interoperability of goods and services or the portability of data, thus hindering competition.

In June this year, the United States also passed six bills aimed at strengthening anti-monopoly law enforcement and restoring online competition. Among them, the adoption of service exchange act focuses on the lock-in effect of platforms. In the field of digital economy, some markets are characterized by high barriers to entry and switching costs, which make consumers and enterprises usually locked in large platforms and lack more options. In turn, this also improves the leading position of large platform enterprises in the relevant markets and hinders the possibility of new entrants to enter the market.

Li qiangzhi, director of the Regulatory Research Department of the Institute of policy and economics of the China Academy of information and communications, previously said that the Ministry of industry and information technology is a return to the basic spirit of the Internet to consider from the perspective of incompatibility and interconnection. "The Internet itself is an interconnected network. The link of IP address and domain name is the basic link of interconnection and the key link of jumping from one page to another. For the bottom web address, the most basic purpose of inventing IP address is Internet Interconnection."

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