The Ministry of Science and ICT will oversee platform operators like Naver, Kakao and Coupang instead of regulatory Fair Trade Commission (FTC) and the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) to suggest innovation prioritized above regulation.

According to government sources on Monday, the self-regulation plan for online platforms is expected to be included in the telecommunications business act within the remit of the Science and ICT Ministry.

The Yoon Suk-yeol presidency has vowed to keep regulations to the minimum as not to hamper with innovation growth.

Under the scheme, private companies will form a self-regulatory organization to regulate the platform industry and draw up guidelines for voluntary monitoring, modeling after the medical industry’s self review board for medical advertising.

To encourage self-regulatory moves, the FTC plans to expand the compliance program to the platform industry, providing benefits like an exemption from its inspection for two years for those who comply with the guidelines well and receive a high grade.

The Korean antitrust watchdog have been reinforcing its monitoring on unfair advertising practices by platform giants since last year after it found that they were trading huge profits from targeted advertising based on customer data while abusing their dominant power by bundling their products or services with advertisements, interfering transactions with competitors or deceitfully collecting private information from customers.

The oversight would likely be eased under the new government.

By Na Hyun-joon and Lee Ha-yeon

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]