통신과금서비스와 소비자보호에 관한 연구

Abstract

The term "telecommunications billing services" means information and communications services to perform the following business activities: (a) Business activities of billing and collecting prices for goods or services sold or rendered by other person (hereinafter referred to as "goods or services") together with charges for the telecommunications services rendered by oneself; (b) Business activities of transmitting and receiving information of transactions electronically so that prices for goods or services sold or rendered by other person can be billed or collected together with charges for the telecommunications services rendered by oneself, or settling, on behalf of another person, or intermediating payments for such prices(Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc. §2 (1) 10). The Act is regulating legal relations of telecommunications billing services. Provisions of the Act are not enough to consumer protection using telecommunications billing services. Therefore, to protect consumer effectively, the Act should be amended as following. The first, the telecommunications billing service is one of consumer credits. So, this should be regulated by not the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc. but the Electronic Financial Transactions Act. The second, when a consumer contracts to telecommunications billing services contract, a provider of telecommunications billing services provides he/she to informations being related with telecommunications billing services. The third, if a consumer pays with telecommunications billing services, he/she must input a password as previously arranged. The fourth, if a provider of telecommunications billing services is liable for damages to the consumer, a provider should not be exempt from liability. Lastly, the jurisdiction of lawsuit relating to telecommunications billing services should be subject to the consumer's address at the time of filing the lawsuit.