Sina Technology Wang Ruohan, Liu Can, Li Heran

As the New Year approaches, WeChat is full of the flavor of red envelopes, but this way of "interesting interaction and emotional expression" in WeChat seems to have hidden dangers - one's own territory, and others should not touch it.

From blocking Alipay At the beginning of the red envelope, WeChat blocked the payment function of Alipay, Xiami Music, Everyday Music and Netease Cloud music. Who will be next? Is this Tencent's systematic strategy or a simple technical decision? Outsiders don't know.

But there is no doubt that WeChat, which threatened to expand the ecosystem, has suddenly changed its face.

The whole story of blocking

On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2014, WeChat, a team of 20 people, launched WeChat Red Packet, which became popular from then on. It was once crazily reported on the media that WeChat payment users broke the 100 million mark overnight. This simple function hit the human nature and became an important product for WeChat to capture mobile payment users and increase social play.

At the same time, in 2015, just as a new round of WeChat red packets was in full swing, Ali launched the new version of "hundreds of millions of red packets" on Alipay, added the function of Spring Festival red packets, launched four play methods - personal red packets, dragon red packets, group red packets and face-to-face red packets, and opened the interface to share to WeChat and QQ.

Unfortunately, this interface was cut off by WeChat within half a day. WeChat responded by blocking Alipay red packets: "WeChat red packets are a fun interaction between friends and a way to express feelings. We will never allow anyone to conduct malicious marketing in the name of red packets in the circle of friends."

The last sentence challenged Ali and said, "When the Alibaba system has access to WeChat payment, let's talk about this again."

So far, WeChat has taken on a tinge of gunpowder. Only a few hours later, the shops opened by merchants on the WeChat platform began to be unable to use Alipay to collect and pay, and all links or requests related to Alipay on the platform were blocked. Alipay, on the other hand, said that it has not blocked any interface call request of WeChat platform merchants unilaterally.

Then, Alibaba's Xiami Music and beautiful everyday users found that they could not share songs with their friends or circle of friends. This time, WeChat gave the reason of "blocking": because the content shared by users has security risks. However, there is no evidence for the identification of such security risks on WeChat.

Netizens believe that when the battle between Tencent and Alibaba is imminent, the next product to be injured is Netease Cloud Music, which is not a giant.

In this regard, Netease Cloud Music grumbled: "The site is WeChat, and Tencent also has its own music applications. They don't want to lose market share, and they still want to continue selling green diamonds. They have their own helplessness, and they have their own reasons. They don't blame WeChat. This is what they should do."

Some netizens could not sit still, and many users commented: "Even so, you don't need QQ music, and it's a big deal to leave WeChat."

As of 3:00 a.m. on February 5, Beijing time, 81.7% of netizens voted against the survey launched by Sina Science and Technology on "WeChat blocking Alipay and other applications, what do you think", believing that "WeChat is suspected of monopoly and too overbearing"; 8% of the users support WeChat, saying "WeChat is the master of WeChat", while the rest of the users say "it doesn't matter".

Suspected of monopoly?

In the above investigation, netizens almost criticized WeChat for its "monopoly". From the perspective of market share in the domestic social networking field, there is no doubt that WeChat will firmly occupy the dominant position. However, from a legal perspective, is WeChat involved in monopoly and unfair competition?

According to Article 3 of the Anti monopoly Law of China, monopoly behaviors include: first, the operators reach a monopoly agreement; second, the operators abuse their dominant position in the market; third, concentration of operators that has or may have the effect of eliminating or restricting competition. The operator first needs to be in a dominant position in the market.

So, does WeChat dominate the market? According to Article 19 of the Monopoly Law, if an operator's market share in the relevant market reaches half, it can be presumed that the operator is in a dominant position in the market. Although WeChat has more than half of the market share in the domestic instant messaging field, this "related market" does not refer to the domestic social networking field.

Well known Internet lawyer Yu Guofu He said to Sina Technology: "The definition of the relevant market is quite complicated in the judicial system, and the monopoly position is not simply based on the market share or the installed capacity." He explained that the Supreme People's Court had previously heard the case of Qihoo 360 v. Tencent QQ Monopoly, and the verdict was that Qihoo lost, and the evidence was not enough to prove that Tencent QQ had monopoly behavior.

Although China's law is not in accordance with the case law of the common law system, many lawyers believe that the above judgment results are referential and applicable to WeChat. Hu Gang, a well-known lawyer, said: "Instant messaging is global, and the relevant market is very broad, almost global, so the Supreme Court decided so. From this, we can infer that in legal theory, WeChat should not be in a dominant position in the market."

From the lawyer's analysis, it seems that WeChat is not suspected of monopoly behavior, so when various blocking behaviors are directed at competitors, is this practice suspected of unfair competition behavior?

Lawyer Yu said that because this WeChat ban is operated in its own products, the following two perspectives will be considered in the legal discussion of the business entity's own products and services.

One is to respect the market operation right of the operation subject, and the public power cannot interfere; Second, on the basis of respecting the right to market operation, we should protect the interests of the public and maintain business ethics and market competition order.

This kind of discussion is more thought-provoking and difficult to make a final conclusion. He said, for example, that the US Department of Commerce Google It is determined that as a search engine, it has the right to assign search weight to content, such as ranking its own products high in weight.

"This is our own right of management. Although it may damage the interests of other companies, it is not enough to damage effective market competition," he added. From this point of view, the blocking of WeChat is more like being the master of your own territory, and it is useless for users to cry.

Of course, users have their own dissatisfaction and indignation, as well as the right to choose other products and services. Many users said that they decided to abandon WeChat because of the impact on their experience. In the view of the National Wealth, this is an effective choice made by consumers, indicating that the market is in an orderly competition state.

Zhao Zhan, an IT and intellectual property lawyer, accepted Sina Technology's connection and said that according to the anti-monopoly law, the monopoly enterprises first have a dominant position in the market, and then have abusive behavior. Both are controversial.

Zhao Zhan pointed out that in the case of WeChat "blocking" Alipay and other applications, the key is how to judge whether the blocking is justified. He thinks this is the biggest controversy. Tencent's reason for blocking is that malicious sharing involves security issues, which depends on whether this reason is tenable.

He believes that if other Internet enterprises want to sue WeChat, they will still face many difficulties. Because the anti-monopoly law only stipulates some principled things, it is difficult to judge whether it is justified or not.

"Connect everything"

Today, WeChat is no longer a simple instant messaging tool. According to Tencent's financial report in the third quarter of 2014, at the end of the third quarter of 2014, the combined monthly active accounts of WeChat and WeChat increased by 39% year-on-year to 468 million. This is a large platform where hundreds of millions of netizens are active.

But today's various blockades remind people of where WeChat, which claims to "connect everything", is going? This "everything" has to start with a solid question mark. Is the "connecting people to people, connecting people to information, connecting people to services, connecting smart life" once said just a gorgeous advertisement?

There is nothing wrong with business, but the business logic behind the blocking of WeChat seems not so simple.

Real open platforms will provide universal basic functions and open interfaces to third-party service providers. From a technical perspective, the function of WeChat's ban can be disassembled into payment function and third-party music service.

Xie Wen, a senior Internet expert, said to Sina Science and Technology: "In the open platform, if there is a strong competitor, the platform will prohibit it from providing common functions. It is a common way to take this technical means. Google will also disable it in search images Microsoft Products, in a non cooperative manner. "

Xie Wen pointed out that the so-called "openness" of a platform is the one-way opening of basic general functions and the comprehensive opening of the application level. As the foundation of an open platform, the basic common functions are not allowed to be challenged; The opening of third-party interfaces at the application level should be non discriminatory and non exclusive.

Since the WeChat platform itself has the payment function, and has also cultivated the user's habit of using WeChat payment through Didi Taxi, it will definitely not let this basic function be challenged by the powerful competitor Ali.

"The openness of the basic payment function is a matter of business judgment," Xie said. In his opinion, whether, how and to what extent the platform's general functions are open, whether it should be open to competitors, whether it should be open to competitors equally, and so on, are not principles but tactics.

However, on the basic layer, whether a platform is truly open depends on its openness to third-party applications. In the open platform, Apple It was told that although it is more closed than Google, the App Store is strictly audited and has built-in applications, but it has no blocking attitude towards third-party high-quality applications.

Unfortunately, in this regard, WeChat does not have an international and comprehensive open attitude because of its steps abroad, but restricts competitors through its own platform to disappoint users.

Xie Wen said: "Tencent itself is not a platform origin, but through its own hundreds of thousands of applications, and then integration. WeChat is not strictly called a platform, but a system. Although all kinds of things look like a platform, it is not good to exclude third-party applications."

In his opinion, WeChat is burdened by Tencent's various products and cannot achieve equality and fairness. "It is unfair if the products that make money are made by themselves and those that don't make money are made by others," he said.

"When a company starts from a product, how to make its own products compete with other products in the same fair environment, and how to separate the application level products left over from the past, is what Tencent needs to consider, which is also beneficial to the platform. Without separation, there will be interest disputes and turbulence, which is not so simple," Xie said.

The Internet emphasizes the spirit of "openness", and the Internet products emphasize "user experience". Tencent has always appeared as the guardian of these two spirits. However, in this "blocking storm", Tencent used the simplest and most brutal method to drive its competitors out of its territory, regardless of whether it would harm the user experience.

As of press release, Alipay, Netease Cloud Music, Xiami Music and Tiny Touch, which were "blocked" by WeChat, still could not be used normally.

Zhang Xiaolong, the leader of WeChat, once said: "We hope to build an ecosystem based on WeChat, rather than making every piece of the ecosystem ourselves. WeChat hopes to build a forest and cultivate an environment, so that all creatures, animals and plants can grow freely in the forest, rather than building their own palaces."

But what WeChat has done makes us ask: WeChat, where is the good openness?

[Event History]

Morning of January 26| Alipay Wallet Launches Red Packet Function to Win the "Midway Island War"

In the afternoon of February 2| "Red packet war" upgrade: Alipay red packet supports WeChat sharing

Night of February 2| WeChat completely blocks Alipay interface, and the Spring Festival red envelope war is imminent

At noon on February 3| Tencent responded by blocking Alipay: talk again when Ali accesses WeChat payment

In the afternoon of February 3| Upgrade of "war" of WeChat Alipay: Alipay is disabled in WeChat stores

Evening of February 3| The battle is in full swing: Alipay pushes the "red envelope password" to break the WeChat blockade

Evening of February 3| WeChat is blocked again: Xiami Music cannot be shared to WeChat

Morning of February 4| Alipay's transfer function fails, and the response is that red packets are hot and overloaded

Morning of February 4| WeChat blocking and upgrading: Netease Cloud Music is also "shot"

Afternoon of February 4| Netease Cloud Music responded that it was blocked: there is no complaint that the site is WeChat