인터넷상 부가서비스 규제에 대한 일고(一考)

Abstract

As various kinds of value added service on Internet has been influencing our economic and social life in constructive and destructive ways, the protection of fair competition and consumer- user interest in the information industry has become a new important policy goal, The value-added service industry was subject to light regulation for the entry to the market and economic behaviour in it under the Telecommunications Business Act even though it was also subject to the various social(personal data protection etc.) and economic regulation under the other statutes. Recently the public concern for the abuse of market power by mobile telecommunication service provider, open application market by OS provider, portal service provider etc. has risen, so that the policy option to strengthen sectoral economic regulation over the value-added industry is under consideration. The recent amendment of the Telecommunications Business Act newly required the technical solution for data and copyright protection for the entry and added regulatory prohibition of unfair revenue sharing between platform and content providers. To prevent dysfunction and unfair practice without undermining Internet’s potential for innovation, the regulatory system should be built based on the peculiar industrial structure of the Internet. The entry cost of the value-added service on the Internet is relatively low and there are practical chances for innovative service to change market structure rapidly. To regulate such a market in fast and flexible manner, the approach like general competition regulation is fitter than the economic regulation responding to danger to specific public interest. And it will be premature to adopt the strict version of platform neutrality or search neutrality as an ex ante regulation principle of value-added industry.