Recently, the news that the Chinese Academy of Sciences decided to stop using HowNet because it could not afford the tens of millions of renewal fees caused a lot of discussion.
18, the relevant person in charge of the Library Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed that the "ten million-level" network transmission renewal fee and the stop of HowNet access were true. As for whether to resume the visit to HowNet in the future, the relevant person in charge said, "It's hard to say now, at least there should be no such plan this year." According to the e-mail, the Document Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences issued a notice saying: "Tongfang Wang Zhi Technology Co., Ltd. (publisher of CNKI database) suspended the access of Chinese Academy of Sciences to CNKI database. On April 8, CNKI scientific journals and doctoral thesis databases could not be downloaded. "
Because of the high cost, many colleges and universities have stopped using HowNet. During the period from 20 12 to 202 1, at least six universities announced that they would stop using HowNet, because the cost of HowNet increased too much. However, after a period of suspension, due to the uniqueness of HowNet database resources and the difficulty of one-stop search for other database resources integration, many universities are forced to continue to cooperate with HowNet.
Hownet currently has a relatively leading market position in the same type of market, and the question of whether Hownet is suspected of monopoly has been re-discussed.
202 1, 1 February, 2002, "HowNet paid more than 700,000 yuan for illegally including 90-year-old professor's thesis" caused a heated discussion. Previously, China Knowledge Network included more than 100 papers by Zhao Dexin, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, but the professor failed to get the payment, so he had to download them himself. The professor finally sued the law and won the case, with a total compensation of more than 700,000 yuan. HowNet said "actively deal with the continuous spread of Professor Zhao Dexin's works on HowNet platform". On April 18, 2022, Professor Zhao wrote again: "HowNet apologized to me after publishing the explanation, and never discussed with me about the paper being put on the shelves." It has been more than four months since HowNet publicly apologized, and more than one paper of Professor Zhao 100 removed from the shelves has not been searched on HowNet.
According to experts, the anti-monopoly law is a highly professional law. Only anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies or judicial organs can judge whether HowNet constitutes monopolistic behavior. There are three steps in judging monopolistic behavior by law enforcement or judicial organs: 1, defining relevant markets; 2. Determine whether it has a dominant market position; 3. Whether there is abuse of market dominance. Experts also said: "It is legal to have a dominant market position, and abuse of this position may violate the anti-monopoly law." It takes a long time to investigate whether it is suspected of industry monopoly.
China HowNet's positioning of the national knowledge infrastructure is highly open, so naturally it cannot take economic profit as the highest standard. Facing the negative public opinion of HowNet, I hope HowNet will carefully examine the current operation strategy, respond to media concerns, and not for its own benefit. And let everyone speak freely. Should contribute to China's academic career.