Naver calls for 'equal footing' with FB, Google in Korea

Naver CEO Han Sung-sook, fifth from left, stands next to the podium as Woowa Brothers CEO Kim Beom-joon, sixth from left, applauds during the inauguration of the Digital Economy Innovation Study Forum held at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. / Yonhap

By Kim Jae-heun

Major local information technology firms have come together to call on the government to ensure fair competition with foreign IT firms here without “discrimination.”

Kakao CEO Yeo Min-soo and Han Sung-sook of Naver called for the measures during the inauguration of the Digital Economy Innovation Study Forum held recently at the National Assembly in Seoul.

“We all watch YouTube and Facebook. These are foreign-made platforms. Coupang, which is dominating the e-commerce market, is also a foreign-made platform. The regulations on the platform business need to be refined to create fair competition between local and international firms,” Yeo said. “We all run services for Korean users but different regulations and penalties are applied to us.”

Han said domestic firms fall heavily behind in terms of engineering manpower and funding by at least 20 to 30 times compared to Facebook, Google and Alibaba, claiming Naver would never be able to compete against any of them one-on-one.

“I hope the same regulations are applied to both global and domestic firms. There shouldn't be restrictions solely put on us just because we are local,” Han said.

Both Yeo and Han also emphasized their firms' contribution to promoting mutual growth with local small and mid-sized companies.

Currently, Kakao sells emojis created by 7,500 local artists, with the top 50 most popular sets generating sales of 1 billion won.

“A new economic ecosystem has been created around the establishment of academies that train artists to invent emojis. Kakao has begun a manufacturing service too for small business owners on our platform called Kakaomakers,” Yeo said.

Naver has been investing in domestic startup companies in the last few years and it has opened a shopping platform called “Smart Store” for budding entrepreneurs to sell their products.

“Anybody can start their own business on the Smart Store and they can simply use their phone to promote products without going anywhere through live commerce. This is the role of IT firms,” Han said.

Meanwhile, a number of IT moguls made appearances at a digital economy forum launched by lawmakers to revitalize the digital economy based on artificial intelligence, e-sports, e-commerce, web comics and over-the-top services in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Kim Kwang-su, a professor at the Computing College of Sungkyunkwan University, stressed the importance of the government playing the role of primer in its "Digital New Deal" policy.

“For the Digital New Deal initiative to work, the government has to suggest a clear vision and invest money while leaving it to the private sector to do business. In a short period of time, it will create odd jobs but it needs to cooperate with private firms to produce stable jobs,” Kim said.

Along with Yeo and Han, Woowa Brothers CEO Kim Beom-joon, Zigbang CEO Ahn Sung-woo and Kakao Pay CEO Ryu Young-joon participated in the inauguration ceremony.