Regulation Unfair Competition in E-Commerce

Abstract

This paper explores some legal issues that arise in the facilitation and regulation of electronic commerce, one of the most important concerns for the future regulation of the Internet. It first identifies the online market activities that have significant antitrust and fair competition implications and then analyzes how these transaction activities on the Internet should be evaluated in terms of antitrust and competition laws.

This paper devotes its first part to the discussion as to how tying, network effects, domain names, promotional technologies such as deeplinking, framing and metataging are becoming significant market strategies and legally controversial in the emerging information economy. It is followed by some observations on currently debated online privacy protection issues on the Internet. As the author’s first step in pursuing an optimal architecture of regulating electronic commerce, this paper concludes that the regulators should be very cautious while they try to regulate the technology and information driven market. It also suggests that only by regulating anti-competitive activities in this approach, the commercial, technological and policy implications of electronic commerce would therefore be fully appreciated.