인터넷 검색광고의 법적 제문제 - 규제방안 재정립을 중심으로 -

Abstract

With the advancement of the internet, a business environment centered-on the internet is also changing in various perspectives. Key internet companies throughout the world are elevating their own corporate values along with recording of the values that exceed the profits of the existing industries by launching a diverse range of services on the basis of new business models. Search advertisements are the most innovative and rational business model among such IT businesses. However, there still is no legal definition and relatively low level of understanding by the policy makers. Although the situation is that the law and system is not keeping pace with the rapid growth of the internet advertisement market, it would be quite inappropriate to apply a uniform criteria of regulations without sufficiently understanding the technique of advertisement that has been introduced several decades ago and deeply rooted in our daily lives in Korea. Therefore, this thesis aims to briefly examine the legal discussions in order to elevate the level of understanding of internet advertisements, in particular, search advertisements, and to deduce future research tasks along with the presentation of the direction of regulations that both the internet advertisement industry and users can be satisfied with. The means of improvement of the regulations related to search advertisements proposed in this thesis are as follows. Firstly, there is a need for the establishment of a new regulation system for search advertisements on the basis of self-control. Secondly, there is a need to establish standards for the resolution of disputes that stipulates the definition of searchadvertisement, etc. Thirdly, there is a need for an assertive review on unification of the government authorities tasked with the regulation of search advertisements. Currently, there exists a diverse range of government authorities for regulation, thereby inducing the possibility of the problems in consistent regulation or equity in regulation. Therefore, it would be necessary to seek the means of unifying the government authorities for regulation of the search advertisements that are sporadically scattered into a single professional authority, if possible. Meanwhile, there exit various legal issues surrounding search advertisements. Some of such legal controversial issues can be resolved through policy means while some others can be solved through the format of self-control. Moreover, some are issues that can be resolved only if legal grounds for regulation is established. In order to deduce such means and grounds, the following research direction is presented. Firstly, there is a need for research on the unification of various legal concepts related to search advertisements. Secondly, there is a need for research for the means of solving the negative factors surrounding search advertisements. Thirdly, research for the re-establishment of status of the interested parties of search advertisements is necessary.