As the bill that transparently discloses the terms of the transaction to prevent online platforms from being'cheoparded' to merchants is released today (28th), the impact on Internet search companies such as Google and Naver is paying attention.
The'Online Platform Fairness Act', which was announced today by the Fair Trade Commission, requires major items to be specified in the contract for the purpose of enhancing the transparency and fairness of the transaction relationship between platform operators and merchants.
These include'how information such as goods is exposed on the online platform and criteria for determining the order of exposure','whether you treat goods sold by you or your affiliates or companies that control your business activities differently And content' included.
Companies that have made a lot of money in business such as advertising and shopping using'search engines' such as Google (app market and search ad) and Naver (search ad and open market) are expected to be included in this regulation.
Whether the search results of these companies are truly fair and transparent has been raised a number of questions and investigated by regulatory authorities.
Naver is currently being investigated by the Fair Trade Commission on charges of first exposing its products to the shopping platform in search results using its dominant position in the search market.
In addition, recently, while signing a contract with another real estate information company, I received a correction order and a fine for the act of preventing the provision of real estate information provided to a third party to a third party.
In the case of Google, it was investigated by the FTC after suspicion was raised that Google Play, an app market, used'recommendation (featuring)' to force the exclusive launch of its platform.
This legislation stipulates that the specific order and criteria of exposure of these platforms should be disclosed to prevent this from happening again.
However, as they have done so far, controversy about the effectiveness of the new regulation is expected to arise if the standards for the order of exposure of search results are only disclosed as'trade secret' or the level of disclosure of the principle standards currently on the website for'possibility of abuse'.
Furthermore, the legislation states that it does not require disclosure of the algorithm for the order of exposure.
Gyeong-jin Choi, professor of law at Gachon University, pointed out that "there is a concern about limiting the freedom of business in the case of the obligation to disclose the standards of exposure to the platform."