China's Supreme People's Court (SPC) released a set of benchmark cases on September 9th, targeting emerging forms of unfair competition that exploit new technologies. These cases involve schemes such as selling "physical plug-ins" to food delivery riders for grabbing orders, using "code-transcoding restructuring" to embed one's own services for profit, and leveraging AI to generate product reviews for self-promotion. The release aims to expose these new types of anti-competitive behavior that disrupt market order.
In recent years, novel unfair competition practices in areas like the internet, digital economy, and artificial intelligence have surfaced frequently. Last year's revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law introduced a special internet clause that addresses actions using technical means to hinder or destroy the lawful provision of online products or services by other operators, using a combination of general principles, specific lists, and catch-all provisions. The SPC stressed the need to apply the law's general clauses and supplementary provisions with caution to precisely target these new violations without stifling innovation.
One of the released cases involves a software company using AI to fabricate reviews of a competitor's product to divert web traffic. According to the court, a tech company specializing in inventory management software was the target. A rival software firm, using "inventory management" as a root, generated dozens of article titles via AI and then produced full articles automatically. These articles appeared to introduce and review the competitor's product. The firm published these on its own website, embedding links to its own software around the content.
The plaintiff sued, claiming unfair competition. The Wuxi Xinwu District People's Court in Jiangsu ruled in the first instance that the defendant used AI to mass-produce articles about the competitor's software, then published them on its official site. By doing so, it exploited search engine natural ranking rules to make these articles appear in public search results, attracting clicks that redirected users to its own product links. The court found this reduced the plaintiff's traffic and transaction opportunities, generated significant online junk content, contaminated data, and disrupted competitive order—constituting unfair competition. The defendant was ordered to pay compensation, and the judgment has taken legal effect.
Another case centered on "physical external devices" for order-grabbing in the food delivery sector. Three companies operating an on-demand delivery platform and a crowdsourcing platform reported receiving numerous complaints since 2024 about riders using external devices to unfairly seize orders, undermining the fairness of the system. Their investigation revealed an electronics firm selling a product called a "point slider" on two e-commerce storefronts, complete with tutorial videos. The tutorials showed riders connecting the device to the platform's app, enabling rapid order refresh and automated grabbing without touching the phone screen, far faster than manual operation. The device's cumulative sales reached millions of yuan.
The platform companies sued the electronics firm. The Huangpu District People's Court in Guangzhou ruled that the firm's actions harmed the platform operators' legitimate interests, damaged fair competition among riders, and negatively impacted consumers and merchants on the platform. The court ordered the electronics firm to pay 3 million yuan, and the judgment is now final.
A third case highlighted "code-transcoding restructuring" as a method to obstruct others' network products. The court clarified that systematically replacing another's core product features beyond necessary scope, embedding one's own services for profit, and actively inserting links to pirated content—thereby interfering with user choice and disrupting another's product operation—constitute unfair competition. The SPC emphasized that courts aim to strike a balance between regulation and development, technological empowerment, and public interest protection while prudently applying the law's general and catch-all provisions to hold offenders accountable and steer technological innovation in a positive direction.