Industry Finance: Economy: News: Hankyoreh



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Blocking ‘sales information’ through real estate information companies … Naver purchases and unfair video behavior will soon be brought to justice

Naver office building.  Naver provided

Naver office building. Naver provided

In February 2015, Kakao challenged Naver Real Estate, which actually dominated the online real estate brokerage platform market at the time. Seven of the top eight real estate information companies that provided confirmed sales to Naver confirmed their intention to cooperate with Kakao Real Estate and promoted this. However, Naver’s claws, which have already become giant dinosaurs in the general market for online platforms such as news, shopping, listening to music, and watching webtoons, were sharpened. Naver understood the Kakao movement and the information companies. In the process of re-contracting the sales information, a “prohibition on providing proprietary information to a third party” was included in the contract. The following year, a penalty provision was added that immediately terminates the contract if a real estate information company violates the provision of the prohibited provision of confirmed property. Naver’s “interference” didn’t stop there. When Kakao promoted an alliance with Naver Real Estate in 2017 with ‘Real Estate 114’, which has relatively few transactions with Naver Real Estate, Naver promoted Real Estate 114 in a similar manner and eventually canceled the alliance with Kakao.

Source: Fair Trade Commission

Source: Fair Trade Commission

On the 6th, the Fair Trade Commission imposed a KRW 1.32 billion penalty along with a corrective order for the hiring act to prevent Naver from providing property information to Kakao, a competitor of the online real estate brokerage platform. , to the real estate information companies with which Naver has partnered. He said it was decided. The FTC viewed it as a “multi-directional lockdown” act that prevented Kakao, a rival company, from entering the market by abusing Naver’s position as the dominant commercial operator in the market at the time. After that, Kakao was virtually withdrawn from the online real estate brokerage market and, in the end, it was determined that consumers were deprived of the option of conducting cheaper and more diverse real estate transactions. In fact, Kakao Real Estate has been operating consignment related services to real estate information company ‘Jikbang’ since 2018 when it was unable to secure sales and sales of real estate after being ‘multi-homing blocked’ by Naver. However, in November 2017, after the FTC launched a related investigation, Naver removed the provision for “ termination of contract due to provision of third party information. ” In a preliminary briefing on the 4th, Song Sang-min, head of the Market Supervision Commission of the Fair Trade Commission, said in a briefing on the 4th: “The probability of transaction increases as exposure increases. of real estate through various channels. He has signed a contract, “he said.” Naver’s intention to build an ecosystem of enterprise-centric real estate brokerage platforms by abusing the dominance of monopoly platform operators has been clearly revealed. “The Fair Trade Law prohibits the exclusion of competitors by abusing their dominant position In fact, from May 2015 to September 2017, the number of unique visitors to Naver Real Estate was 284 million times, and Payby View accounted for more than 70% of the total market with 1.3695 million. number of sales, Naver recorded 28.9 million, more than 40% of total sales. In response, Naver released a statement the same day, saying: “The confirmed listing information is the first service in the industry that Naver introduced in 2009, and it is a creative service that has obtained two patents. “” Kakao was confirmed by Naver without incurring any cost or effort. It explained that the third-party provision prohibition was established to easily secure high-quality proprietary information through the proprietary system. ““ The FTC deemed Naver’s legitimate exercise of rights illegal, ignoring reasonable alternatives. and the innovative efforts of Naver. Medio. ” Meanwhile, this case is the first case where the ICT research team launched last year to deal exclusively with the unfair commercial activities of online platform companies gave the final results. The Fair Trade Commission is reported to release the results of allegations that Naver has engaged in unfair business practices in shopping and video services by abusing the dominant commercial position in the market after Naver Real Estate. By Hong Seok-jae and Choi Min-young, Staff Reporter [email protected]



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