Need for Regulation
The issue of transparency and fairness is heating up centered on Google and Facebook.
Kim Sang-jo, the newly appointed chairman of the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC), said June 25, “(Google and Facebook are) sweeping information without paying nothing for the network established by taxpayers’ money.” He went onto say, “(We)” have to begin a careful study about how to approach this issue, adding, “A review is ‘under way’ on whether to introduce regulation against them.”
He particularly stressed, “There is no room for second mover to enter the (rational competition) in the fourth industrial revolution owing to the impact of network, adding, “The new role of the Korea Fair Trade Commission is to set up a strong market structure enough to sustain the nation’s new industries for the future.”
His remarks seem to have come from the recent disputes between Facebook and local internet service providers SK Broadband and LG U+.
Last month, Facebook demanded the expansion of networks of the two local network service providers with the money from the local companies’ pockets to respond to the surge of users and data use of the US-based social media. When its demand was denied, Facebook blocked local users from accessing the site in Korea, which led local users to suffer slower access to the site because they had to use servers located in Hong Kong and the US.
The FTC also recently resumed its investigation into Google for the charges of pre-installing the Google app in smartphones using the Android operating system (OS) as the OS market share has sharply increased. Earlier, Google had signed an agreement with Samsung Electronics in 2011 to set Google’s search as the default and include its 12 apps such as YouTube and Gmail on the front screen of Samsung phones. The Korea’s fair trade watchdog, which began investigating the issue in 2011, dropped the case after three years’ investigation, saying that the US-based IT giant’s market dominance was just around 10 percent in Korea.
The two companies have argued that they abide by all the relevant regulations and rules of Korea.