S. Korea's watchdog creates division to probe unfair biz activity by platform operators

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has established a division in charge of digital advertisements under its ICT team to better investigate alleged unfair business practices by online platform operators in digital ads.

The regulator has been investigating whether Google has abused its market-dominant status with its new billing policy. Google earlier announced a plan to charge a 30 percent fee to all app developers over in-app digital content purchases in South Korea.

The new division, which would be under the ICT team, will probe whether platform operators prohibit app developers and other contractors from running ads on their competitors when they provide services. It would look into the alleged illegal collection of user data.

The ICT team has mainly conducted probes into alleged competition-hampering activities by online platform operators. It has four divisions, including those on app markets and online to offline platforms.

The KFTC will also take a deeper look into alleged unfair business practices involving in-app digital goods purchases to better protect app developers and consumers.