온라인플랫폼 공정화법 제정안에 대한 검토

Abstract

The growth of the online market has led to the growth of IT startups and the development of related derivative industries; however, such growth has also brought about new problems such as: (i) issues relating to the reinforcement of the superior bargaining position of the online platforms, the center of the market growth, and (ii) issues relating to the emergence of unfair trade practices. More specifically, examples of such issues include the following acts by online platform businesses: unilaterally altering contractual terms and conditions or suspending its services; transferring the return costs to users; intentionally exposing the platform businesses’ own products or its affiliates’ products as the top search result; and providing certain business users “most-favored customer clauses.” In order to resolve such problems, the EU and Japanese governments have enacted laws and regulations to regulate activities relating to online platforms and the Korean government is also in the process of enacting laws and regulations for this purpose. The reason for many countries to enact laws and regulations to regulate online platforms around the similar time would perhaps be due to the fact that the current laws and regulations in place are not sufficient to resolve the problems and issues arising from activities related to online platforms. The fact that online platforms are ever evolving in combination with various factors, however, is a reason for the new laws and regulations to be different in form from the current laws in place. This means that there should be a good balance between innovation and regulation. In Korea, the new bill pending legislation is based on the current structure of the Korean laws regulating unfair trade practices. However, the new bill is notable in the fact that it places an emphasis on preventative regulatory measures in order to promote the transparency of commercial transactions, and that it newly provides for separate criteria to determine what is the “superior bargaining position” in a commercial transaction. In comparison to the similar laws of other jurisdictions, the new bill is similar to other countries’ laws in that they emphasize the importance of preventative regulatory measures, but the new bill is also different in that it directly regulates unfair trade practices as well as sanctions for any violation. In this article, Author suggests that, in order for the new bill on online platform law to have its regulatory feasibility, the required fields of a contract, to be published through a public notice , should be limited to an appropriate extent and that specific standards should be provided for. In addition, Author further suggests that the concept of intermediary services should be interpreted with limitations in accordance with the purpose of the new bill. Last but not least, Author particularly proposes that the market should voluntarily change since the new bill has provided for a policy giving direction on the regulation of online markets.