Therefore, we should understand and see through this action and its possible impact, or we should analyze and judge it from its essence, the whole historical process and internal logic.
Even on a global scale, this action is leading. Although China's anti-monopoly process lags behind Europe and America for the time being, I personally feel that this action of interconnection has a certain leading role, which involves the deep-seated problems of network governance.
A few months ago, our team was just studying this issue, and published two academic papers, one on the analysis and governance of "interconnection", which discussed the deep governance of the Internet in China from a historical dimension and a global perspective. The second is about the demolition of the walled garden. By understanding the nature, operation mechanism, influence and harm of the walled garden, the countermeasures and suggestions for cracking the walled garden are sought.
Why is the interconnection between Internet platforms unique? This is due to the complexity of the platform itself. From the research point of view, this paper puts forward the triple attributes of technology, economy and society (tes) of large-scale Internet platforms, and constructs a systematic TES theory. As far as each attribute is concerned, the existing legal system is gradually improving, with a series of legal support from the perspectives of security, competition and data.
Interoperability between platforms is related to these three attributes, but it is not clear enough. The interconnection of Internet platform and telecommunication network also has different connotations, belonging to the "three no matter" zone, not limited to China, and the whole world is facing the same situation.
In the world of Internet, interconnection is a default rule, so the Internet can connect 5 billion people around the world, which is different from telegraph network and telephone network. As early as the 1960s, the power supply network has been globalized, and the telegraph network and telephone network have become global networks. Physically speaking, there is no essential difference between Internet and telegraph network and telephone network.
However, connecting 5 billion people together, the Internet is different from the telegraph network and the telephone network. Although there is inherent inevitability in this, there are also many historical contingencies. Vint cerf, the father of the Internet, believes that from a technical point of view, universal free connection is the default premise of the Internet, and we don't need to discuss more or say more rules, which is the default premise.
Milton Muller is one of the most famous experts in the field of global network governance. He believes that seamless link, boundlessness and transparency are the belief laws of the whole Internet. In our genes, this openness is a physical theorem, the essence of the Internet described by the Internet Society, and the invariants of the Internet.
Another Internet researcher believes that this kind of openness is the meta-architecture of the Internet, and everyone admires this meta-architecture, including the recently popular "meta-universe". Openness is also the meta-architecture of the Internet.
My personal feeling is that whoever can break this meta-level architecture under this default principle must be an extraordinary person who needs super applications, which is also a problem of Internet interconnection.
Why is there this "optional action" this time, and this unexpected "action" will cause such a big response?
Let's go back and trace the connection. Interconnection first appeared in the field of telegraph. At that time, people caused conflicts between countries for different password rules and different laws. The deadlock was broken in 1865, and the International Telegraph Union was established, which was equivalent to the Victorian Internet.
In today's Internet, it is ITU that undertakes this mission. Interconnection is an important problem to be solved by this alliance.
In the US 1934 Communication Act and 1996 Telecommunication Act, interconnection is the basic rule. Including China's telecommunications regulations, all have basic requirements for interconnection. They are mainly aimed at the interconnection of the underlying communication. The interconnection of Internet service information and services based on the underlying communication network only happened in recent ten years. Interconnection can be understood as interconnection between networks, between networks and devices, and between devices.
Putting this problem into the whole historical process, it is not difficult to find that China also had interconnection among telecommunication networks in the 1990s, but the real and pure interconnection of the Internet will be in 20 10. From the rise of social media giants, with hundreds of millions of users, to the emergence of "walled gardens" and now the enhanced version of "walled gardens", the interconnection of the Internet has really become a "problem".
Today, it seems that the interconnection between networks is a matter of course, but the real interconnection is not easy, and it is effortless to lose interconnection.
The Internet is divided into five layers, regardless of the interoperability of the bottom layer, which is the basic default rule of the whole Internet. The problem of interoperability mainly appears in the fifth layer-a large number of interconnections of the application layer. Although the underlying basic network has basically achieved interoperability, there are still many impassable places. 20 16 the three giants of global network governance jointly released a report-internet fragmentation. They divided the problems affecting interconnection into 28 categories, from technology fragmentation to government level. At the same time, in order to govern the Internet, it will also bring some interoperability problems. In addition, there are six categories at the business level.
Therefore, the actions of each layer will affect the interconnection of the whole Internet.
The biggest difference between telegraph network and telephone network is that telegraph and telephone network are commercialized from the beginning. We know that Edison and Bayer are both businessmen, and they both set up their own companies. The government believes that telephone and telegraph are issues of great public interest, and the government has formulated many rules. But the internet is different.
The first 25 years after the birth of the Internet, it was an experimental action of scientists, without considering security issues or commercial interests, so there was not much "regulation", just trying to ensure openness. Therefore, from the packet switching technology in the 1960s to the unification of TCP/IP protocol in the 1970s, and then to the global Internet completed by universities all over the world in the 1980s, a domain name system, including today's domain names, was formed, which was professionally called "unique identifier". Without this system, the Internet cannot communicate with each other.
In the 1990s, the Internet began to be commercialized, and telecommunications could not interfere with the interconnection of the Internet by default, which was also a solid foundation. In 2 1 century, a large number of platforms rose, and after these platforms had certain scale capabilities, interconnection began to have problems.
At this time, countries began to introduce various legal systems to regulate these super platforms and regard them as "critical infrastructure".
Therefore, there is a big difference between the Internet and telegraph networks and telephone networks-this is a major legacy of global network governance.
In the past, the US government did not want governments of all countries to participate in the governance of the Internet, but now the Internet lacks a global governance mechanism and a very complete legal system, which is a problem left over from history.
Moreover, the United States believes that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) should not be in charge of network governance, because ITU is too traditional and conservative, which does not conform to the ecology of active innovation of the Internet. However, with the explosive growth of mobile Internet applications, the interconnection problem at the Internet level is more complex and comprehensive than that in the telecommunications industry. So today our special action is just the beginning, just putting a difficult problem in front of everyone.
Metcalfe's law proves that the value of a network is directly proportional to the number of nodes or users. The more users brush, the greater the value of the network, including the value of nodes. Anyone who connects to the Internet acquiesces to the rules of the Internet, that is, accepts its rules. If it is not interconnected, it is equivalent to "suicide."
What kind of company doesn't want to be interconnected?
There are two prerequisites: first, its own scale should be large enough, even if it is separated from the whole internet, it can realize its own value through self-circulation; Second, the value of self-isolation is far greater than the value of openness, so close yourself up. Without these two conditions, we have no motivation and qualification to be disconnected.
Therefore, this "walled garden" is essentially the "re-privatization" of the Internet, from a public thing to a private garden.
The underlying logic of Internet development is scientific logic, rather than following commercial logic or government logic, because both business and government need to be controlled in order to make profits and achieve effective management, and its security issues are different from other networks and communication networks.
This time, the problem is equivalent to a "restart" of the Internet in China. However, many technical standards, such as how to define interconnection, how to realize interconnection, how to determine rules and how to realize technology, need to do a lot of work in the later stage.
Almost all internet pioneers are worried that the internet is gradually abandoning openness. Among them, Tim Berners Lee, the father of the World Wide Web, not only called for, but also acted to maintain the openness of the Internet. But in the face of business, their voices are getting weaker and weaker, and they are becoming less and less instructive.
At this time, the power of the government needs to return and re-coordinate the complex relationship between interests and power.
The interconnection of the Internet is not planned or managed, but grows slowly from the bottom up, so it is a long-term product of science, technology, market and government supervision. However, the "walled garden" has begun to break the existing open logic, and the Internet has gone in another direction.
The "walled garden" state of the Internet is particularly prosperous in China, but it is definitely not only in China. The most successful "walled garden" in the world is Apple, which is a global problem, not just a problem in China.
In addition, some people say that if the "walled garden" is destroyed, there may be many security problems and marginal tools, and everyone will be in a mess. I don't think there is anything to worry about.
Because, from the beginning, for example, the most famous Internet is the dispute between TCP/IP protocol and OSI protocol. The OSI protocol is led by international organizations, with the participation of large companies, and has been recognized by governments all over the world. Top-down specifications are very strict, and security and business are also considered. However, PK was carried out between the last two protocols, and finally the TCP/IP protocol won a great victory. Moreover, the main reason why people look down on TCP is that it is unreliable, transmission often loses packets, is uncontrollable, can't receive money, and is unsafe. But why is this "guerrilla" agreement successful? Because it conforms to the development law of the Internet, and the underlying logic of the Internet is how to build security in an open system.
Therefore, we can no longer go back to the closed system to seek security, but must seek security in an open state.
Judging from the countermeasures, the Anti-Monopoly Law has no direct influence on the walled garden.
I think the core countermeasures are two points. First, it is considered that the super platform is a key infrastructure, and public and social interests must be considered and it must be open. Moreover, the real "walled garden" is several platforms, and small enterprises cannot implement the "walled garden" strategy.
Secondly, I think we still need a "one stroke" law. There are many laws in China now, which is still a puzzle. Facing the problem of interconnection, it is very vague and complicated. There must be a new law, which should not be supervised afterwards like antitrust, but should be supervised beforehand.
Obligations in the European Digital Market Law stipulate seven active businesses, nine prohibited businesses and two additional businesses. This obligation of 18 basically solves the problems of platform interconnection, anti-monopoly, competition and data flow.
For China, there is great room for academic research and institutional research to contribute to the Internet all over the world. Non-discriminatory, non-discriminatory, non-selective and unconditional open interconnection between platforms should become the new normal of the whole Internet. According to Fang Xingdong's speech at the 223rd Digital Forum, Fang Xingdong is the chief expert of the Institute of Social Governance of Zhejiang University.