Assessment of AI-enabled Price Discrimination Under Competition-Related Rules in China
摘要
China has established a comprehensive framework to address concerns arising from AI-enabled price discrimination (AIPD) in digital markets. The competition law regime aims to tackle AIPD ex-post in monopolistic markets, while laws beyond competition law—including the Price Law, Consumer Protection Law, Cybersecurity Law, E-Commerce Law, and Personal Information Protection Law—regulate AIPD ex ante in non-monopolistic markets. Under the ex-post competition law regime, the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) provides theoretical possibilities for addressing AIPD, primarily through the lens of “discriminatory treatment” as the first approach, and “unfair pricing” as a secondary option. In contrast, ex ante compliance regimes, governed by laws beyond competition law, regulate personalized pricing in both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions in digital markets. These laws govern the collection and use of consumer data, automated decision-making, and algorithm-based recommendation services—thereby restricting undertakings' ability to accurately estimate consumers’ willingness to pay. In this sense, if these regulations are effectively enforced, AIPD is less likely to occur in digital markets. As such, China has established a holistic theoretical framework to address the concerns caused by AIPD, which looks neat and fair on paper. However, how effectively this framework functions in practice and to what extent it can mitigate AIPD-related concerns still require further empirical evidence. We look forward to its continued application in digital markets.