Regulation to help tech firms reform restrictive practices on links

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China's top industry regulator, said on Monday that it will step up its crackdown on the practice of restricting normal access to web links among internet companies.

In China, some internet companies restrict other companies' services on their own platforms. For instance, Tencent's WeChat Pay, a mobile payment tool, is not available on Alibaba's e-commerce marketplaces Taobao and Tmall. And consumers can not directly share web links to product information from Taobao and Tmall on the WeChat messaging app.

MIIT Spokesman Zhao Zhiguo said restricting identification, analysis, and normal access to web links without justifiable reasons affects user experience, damages user rights, and disrupts market order. The ministry has received many complaints from consumers about this topic.

Interconnection is an inevitable choice for the high-quality development of the internet-based business sector, and allowing users to use the internet smoothly and safely is the right direction to take for the internet-based businesses, Zhao said.

According to him, the ministry will ask enterprises to solve the problem of blocking web links on online platforms step by step.

Zhao said the ministry will make more efforts to correct these practices, like strengthening administrative guidance, supervision and law enforcement.

For companies that have not taken adequate corrective steps, the ministry will initiate measures in accordance with laws and regulations to rectify a number of typical violations, so as to build an open, standardized and secure internet environment.

Tencent said in a statement on Monday that it resolutely supports the MIIT's decision and the company will implement the requirements step by step, with safety as the bottom line.

Alibaba said openness is the foundation of the digital ecosystem, and the company will meet the relevant requirements of the MIIT to work with other platforms, in order to "face the future and meet each other".