In recent days, the controversial China HowNet has once again fallen into the vortex of public opinion. Not long ago, a news that "the Chinese Academy of Sciences was overwhelmed by the renewal cost of nearly 10 million and stopped using the China HowNet database" triggered a heated discussion on the Internet. According to the e-mail, the literature and information center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences issued a notice saying: "tongfangzhiwang Technology Co., Ltd. (CNKI database publisher) suspended the access of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to the CNKI database. From now on (Note: April 8), the CNKI science and technology journals and doctoral and master's thesis database cannot be downloaded." On April 18, Red Star News reported that an insider of the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed the authenticity of the suspension of HowNet. The reason is that the subscription fee of HowNet has risen year after year and has exceeded the mark of 10 million yuan. In the face of the inconvenience caused by the suspension, the major institutes of the Chinese Academy of sciences are actively dealing with the subsequent impact, which may be replaced by other academic databases and document delivery. From relevant reports, it is not difficult to see that as a "consumer" with strong scientific research strength, CAS is quite dissatisfied with the practice of "big store bullying" of CNKI. However, at the other end of the dispute, CNKI did not respond much to the incident that had been making a lot of noise in the field of public opinion. It only replied to the light three words "untrue" in the face of the media, and there was no other explanation. However, multiple sources cross confirmed that the accusations of the Chinese Academy of sciences are by no means groundless. Looking back, academic institutions have already been abandoned more than once because of the high fees charged by China's HowNet. In January 2016, Wuhan University of Technology issued a notice on the suspension of HowNet, saying that "due to the unreasonable increase in renewal price, the negotiation between our university and China HowNet company was unsuccessful". In March of the same year, Peking University also posted a notice that it was about to stop HowNet, saying that "it is not easy to compromise with merchants' excessive price increase". In addition, there are many universities such as Taiyuan University of technology, Jimei University and so on. Now, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has joined the ranks. To be honest, it is not surprising. According to the statistics of Wuhan University of Technology Library, since 2000, the annual increase of HowNet quotation has exceeded 10% for many times. The high price, coupled with the daunting rate of price rise, is a great burden for any academic institution. Unfortunately, many colleges and universities that had previously announced that they would stop cooperating with HowNet later resumed their cooperation with HowNet under realistic pressure. The key reason is that many services provided by HowNet are irreplaceable. Although CNKI operates as an enterprise, it is also a national knowledge infrastructure supported by many relevant departments, and has an extremely special industry status. This heavy identity makes knownet have a "soft monopoly" position in the field of academic database. As Zhao Zhanzhan, a researcher at the intellectual property center of China University of political science and law, said: "the advantage of HowNet is that it has mastered the core copyright resources, or bought out the copyright resources of most journals. If China HowNet keeps raising prices without reason or insufficient reason, it may involve the abuse of its dominant market position." According to a source from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, after the deactivation of HowNet, the unit will switch to academic databases such as Wanfang and VIP. However, the coverage of these databases is far from that of CNKI. If the documents of CNKI are bought with real money, there is some reason to charge a high price. However, in fact, many scholars' papers have been downloaded many times on HowNet, and they have never received even a penny. At the end of 2021, Zhao Dexin, an 89 year old retired professor and economic historian of Zhongnan University of economics and law, sued CNKI for infringement and won the lawsuit. He won numerous praises on the Internet, which also aroused the resonance of many scholars. This phenomenon shows that the profit model of HowNet is not reasonable enough. The positioning of China HowNet is "National Knowledge Infrastructure", which has a strong publicity. Undoubtedly, it can not take economic profit as the highest criterion. In the face of the negative public opinion of "the world's knowledge network has been suffering for a long time", CNKI should also carefully examine the current operation strategy, respond to the reasonable concerns of the academic community, and make positive contributions to China's academic cause. (Xinhua News Agency)