인터넷 검색서비스에 대한 경쟁법 집행에 있어 관련시장 획정에 대한 검토

tudy on the Definition of Relevant Markets in Relation to the Application of the Competition Law to Internet Search Services

The Supreme Court recently issued its ruling on an appeal case regarding Naver’s restriction of pre-roll commercials placed by video content providers, which the Fair Trade Commission ordered as abuse of a market dominant position. The essence of the ruling was that relevant markets, which are the threshold in decisions on market dominance, should be delimited to only the markets concerned. The Fair Trade Commission acknowledged that Naver’s abuse of its market dominant position occurred in their trade market with video content providers. The Supreme Court found that the decision made by the Fair Trade Commission recognizing Naver as having abused its market dominant position, citing the user’s side of the market, was illegal on grounds of the two-sided market characteristics of Internet search services. The Internet search service market has an indirect network effect due to its two-sided characteristic; hence, the increase of market participants on the side of the market that offers free service can have increased dominance over the other market. The Fair Trade Commission took into consideration the characteristic of the two-sided market, recognizing market dominance in the content supply market based on the market share in the user market, which the Supreme Court saw as illegal. A business must hold a dominant position in a certain trade area in order to be ategorized as a market dominant position business. ‘Relevant markets’ in terms of the abuse of market dominant positions make up the factual proposition of recognizing the market dominant position while also sending a corrective order to the exploitive behavior of abusing the dominant market position. Limited competition from abuse of the dominant market position is linked to market dominance in relevant markets. In this regard, the Supreme Court’s ruling was on the delimitation of the relevant market, which should be limited to the specific market where the abuse took place.