Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
Dolby, Apple, Google to be grilled by lawmakers
By Nam Hyun-woo
Google Korea CEO John Lee
By Nam Hyun-woo
Apple, Google and other global info-tech companies operating in Korea will face audits by the National Assembly over allegations that they abused and unfairly treated their local business partners, lawmakers said Monday.
They said they will summon the chiefs of Apple Korea, Google Korea, Dolby Laboratories Korea and other global firms for questioning
According to Rep. Kim Kyung-jin of the Party for Democracy and Peace, the members of Science, ICT, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee of the Assembly are preparing for requesting the attendance of the heads of those companies during the audit scheduled next month.
Also, the Assembly's National Policy Committee, which is in charge of matters related to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), is also planning to hear from them at the audit.
“You can say every related lawmakers' office at the Assembly is planning to request their appearance,” an official at Kim's office said. “Each office seems to be preparing a lot for the audit because there are serious problems about those companies' unfair business practices.”
Apple Korea has been under investigation for more than two years by the Fair Trade Commission over an allegation that it coerced mobile carriers to shoulder advertising costs and also repair costs for its iPhones.
Dolby Laboratories Korea Country Manager Lee Sang-ho
In Korea, Apple's iPhone video ads include logos of three mobile carriers -- SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus -- at the end of the ads. Apple Korea allegedly asked carriers to shoulder some of the ad costs in return for the one to two seconds of logo exposure.
The FTC said it has yet to come to any conclusion on the investigation, but industry officials say “Apple's business practices have been noticed globally and punished by fair trade regulators of many countries including Taiwan and France.”
Google Korea is also under controversy that YouTube is paying small fees to internet service providers (ISPs) while putting heavy loads on their networks.
Reportedly, Korea's leading internet portal Naver is paying 73 billion won a year to ISPs, but YouTube, which is the most used app in Korea, is paying almost “nothing” to the carriers.
Also, criticism has been raised about YouTube for demanding ISPs to set up cache servers for free. A cache server stores previously requested web pages or internet content locally so it can allow faster access for data.
By setting up cache servers in 2012, YouTube could load data faster than receiving data from its servers in Hong Kong and Japan, while domestic ISPs opted to grant YouTube's demand in fear of hefty prices for using international networks.
Dolby Laboratories Korea is also reportedly being investigated by the FTC over allegations that the company coerced a small set-top box manufacturer that unless the company follows Dolby's sound technology standard it would impose penalties on it.