비정형광고의 개념 정의 및 바람직한 규제 방안

Abstract

With the growth of the internet advertising market, the dysfunctions of the internet advertising is on the rise. Advertisers without being exposed distribute false or deceptive information that leads consumers to misperception, and some advertising agencies sell advertisements by unlawful means to the small businesses who are in lack of knowledge and experiences in the field of ICT. It is a meaningful topic to reduce damages caused by the false or deceptive advertisements in the viewpoint of consumer and advertiser protection. To deal with this problem in an effective way, it is worth identifying the information distributed on the internet whether it is from the users just participating in producing and sharing information, or from the business operators who intend to get commercial gains. In this thesis, I tried to define the concept of ‘atypical advertisement’ that causes damages to consumers and small businesses, and to analyze the current status and identify the problems of the atypical advertisements. I also reviewed the desirable measure to regulate the illegal advertisements on the internet, taking advantage of the best practices of co-regulation between the regulatory authorities and the online service providers. As it is not easy to perfectly regulate the illegal information on the internet violating laws related to copyright, privacy, trademark rights and defamation only by either public regulation or self-regulation, so is it not to regulate the illegal advertisements on the internet. Therefore, the public and the self regulation need to be combined to prevent the damages of consumers and advertisers caused by the atypical advertisements. There are several cases of co-regulation between the domestic online service providers and the regulatory authorities to prevent and block the illegal information. The role of the regulatory authorities is to interpret the provisions of the laws and the unlawfulness of the information and set up guidelines, and that of the online service providers is to eliminate or block the illegal information from their online services or to exclude it from the search results without delay, when they come to know its unlawfulness. The same can be applied to the atypical advertisements. Meanwhile, the internet advertising has contributed to consumers’ welfare and the development of the industries by expanding consumers’ information access rights and supporting the growth of small businesses. Therefore, the government needs to design policies supporting the growth of the internet advertising market.