Between Transparency and Reasonableness: Decoding China’s Regulatory Framework for Algorithmic Price Personalization

Event Description

In the digital economy, the practice of algorithmic price discrimination, widely known in China as ‘big data backstabbing’ (大数据杀熟), has generated significant public controversy. To address this, Chinese legislators and regulatory authorities have built a multi-layered legal framework encompassing the E-Commerce Law, the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), and the anti-monopoly provisions. This framework employs a dual approach of ‘formal control’ (mandating transparency and depersonalized options) and ‘substantive control’ (requiring customized prices to be ‘reasonable’). This talk will outline the current status of Chinese legal norms and judicial practices regarding algorithmic pricing.

For Zoom link, contact Louise Chen at: cals@allard.ubc.ca.

Speaker

Jiangqiu Ge is an Associate Professor at Fudan University Law School. He obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Law from Tsinghua University Law School, and received his PhD in Law from Maastricht University in the Netherlands in 2017. At Fudan University, Professor Ge also serves as the Assistant Dean responsible for international affairs. Additionally, he was seconded to the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Committee as the Deputy Division Chief, providing him with firsthand experience in local legislative practices in China. Professor Ge’s research focuses primarily on consumer law and cyber law, with research interests including punitive damages, withdrawal rights, regulation of standard terms, algorithmic regulation, personal information protection, and virtual space governance. 

Selected Publications

• Algorithmic Price Personalization in China, in Fabrizio Esposito & Mateusz Grochowski (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Algorithmic Price Personalization and the Law, Cambridge University Press, 2025, pp. 270-283.
• Unpacking Data: China’s ‘Bundle of Rights’ Approach to the Commercialization of Data, International Data Privacy Law, Volume 13, Issue 2, May 2023, pp. 93–106. (with Prof. XIONG Bingwan and Prof. CHEN Li)
• The Chinese Civil Code’s Impact on the Protection of Virtual Reputation in China, Asia Pacific Law Review, Issue 2, 2021, pp. 366-383. (with Prof. CHEN Li)
• The Obligation to Provide ‘Non-personalised’ Search Results under the Chinese E-commerce Law, Computer Law & Security Review, Volume 41, 2021. (with Prof. CHEN Li)