The multiple logics of promoting platform interoperability

ABSTRACT

Platform interoperability has become a key tool for countries and regions with a significant global digital economy impact to pursue ex ante control strategies for platforms. Promoting Internet platforms to achieve interconnection requires a proper balance of technical, economic, and law-based logic. At the level of technical logic, interoperability includes service interoperability and data interoperability, both within the platform ecosystem and between the competing platforms. At the economic logic level, the size and marketing strategies of the established large platforms constitute a structural threat to digital market competition, which requires ex ante industry regulation beyond the antitrust enforcement system. At the level of law-based logic, promoting the rule of law development of platform interoperability requires establishing a refined interest-balancing mechanism. We need to pioneer the interoperability of services and data within a large platform ecosystem, and promote data interoperability among platforms with a steady pace.

KEYWORDS:

• Platform interoperability
• technical logic
• economic logic
• law-based logic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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Additional information

Funding

This article is funded by the general project of the National Social Science Foundation of China, ‘Research on the Legal Issues of Setting Administrative License on the Internet’ [Project No. 18BFX050], and is also funded by the ‘Qian Duanshang Distinguished Scholar Support Program of China University of Political Science and Law’.