Fair Trade Commission to look into Google’s unfair advertising practices

The Korea Fair Trade Commission will investigate the suspicion of Google’s unfair advertising practices to find out if there were any unfair business practices taken by the Internet giant, including interfering with competitors, during its process of increasing market share in the South Korean search advertising market. Other countries, including the U.S. and those in Europe, are increasing pressure on Google by demanding the company to dissolve its digital advertising business unit.

According to relevant ministries on Sunday, the Korea Fair Trade Commission ordered research services to investigate Google’s digital advertising business. The research is to analyze Google’s digital advertising business structure and identify its business practices. It will especially focus on whether Google unfairly attracted customers with tie-in sales, etc., or interfered with its competitors’ entry into the market.

The commission investigated the general digital advertisement market of the country in 2021. It was to identify the market situation, especially whether there were any new types of unfair practices as the influence of giant platform companies grew in the digital advertisement market with their big data as a weapon.

The new additional research is targeted at Google among the giant platform companies. It is believed that the commission found issues with Google’s advertising practices and decided to identify the current situation before a full-scale investigation.


1am@donga.com