DISCUSSIONS ON PLATFORM REGULATIONS

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The four-day-long service disruptions in the Kakao Talk messaging app has shed light on the platform's focus on business expansion and profit-making. The latest incidient is likely to speed up the legislation of regulations on the platform market.

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President Yoon Suk-yeol noted that the state must respond to market distortions caused by monopoly. He said the Fair Trade Commission is coming up with countermeasures.

[Soundbite] Yoon Suk-yeol(President (Oct. 17)) : "When extreme monopoly distorts the market, especially when it affects the nation’s infrastructure, I believe the state needs to respond to it institutionally for the public good."

The FTC is coming up with a set of detailed evaluation guidelines for Kakao and other online platforms. In the online platform sector, an early market entry tends to result in a lengthy monopoly of the market. It is also hard to assess if there is market monopolization by price or production output. Given these characteristics, the FTC plans to set up detailed rules on what a platform should not do. Once the guidelines are in place, the government expects to regulate the platforms' many violations in a prompt and strict manner.

[Soundbite] Prof. Kwon Nam-hoon(Dept. of Economics, Konkuk Univ.) : "It’s hard to define the market for platforms. Some activities may look similar to traditional anti-competition activities, but it’s not easy to determine that."

In a separate case, the FTC has been looking into whether Kakao Mobility has been assigning passengers only to its member cabs. It's poised to sanction the mobility service provider. The recent fire has prompted the FTC to look into any issues with Kakao's users' service agreement. However, the FTC will maintain its basic policy of allowing platforms to regulate themselves. But, when autonomous regulation fails, the government is not ruling out the possibility of regulating the industry through legislation.