Government staff study information presented by the "Zhejiang Equity Online" digital platform. [Photo/WeChat account:zjfabu]

The Zhejiang Administration for Market Regulation launched a digital platform named "Zhejiang Equity Online" on Feb 26.

The platform was the first-ever digitized supervision system for monopoly and unfair competition in the "platform economy" area in China. It was also the province's first step in digitization reform following the provincial government's dedicated conference on Feb 18.

Currently at its first stage, the supervision system monitors about 20 key e-commerce platforms, as well as over 10,000 online stores, 500 brands, and 100,000 kinds of products on these platforms. Using advanced internet technologies like big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, the system provides around-the-clock detection, analysis, as well as pre-warning for monopolistic behaviors, such as setting unfair restrictions in transactions, adopting first-degree price discrimination on the basis of user data, selling goods at below-cost prices, and reaching vertical monopoly agreements.

Zhejiang province started to apply digital technologies to supervise internet transactions as early as 2017, when it established a national e-commerce monitor center in the province in cooperation with national market regulation authorities.

The "'Zhejiang Equity Online' digital platform upgrades the supervision mode over the 'platform economy' from postmortem investigation to in-process and proactive oversight, detecting legal risks in the daily operations of e-commerce platforms in real time," said Wang Jian, a member of the expert advisory group of the State Council's anti-monopoly commission.

"It helps to build a 'digitized rule of law' and makes significant contributions to Zhejiang's initiative to become a global pioneer for digitization reform."