Naver "Naver Real Estate Fair Trade Commission Fine, Considering Legal Action"

"If Fare Evasion Is Overlooked, Innovation Disappears from the Market"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] On the 6th, Naver stated that it will "consider legal action" in response to the Fair Trade Commission imposing a fine on it for obstructing the provision of real estate listing information to Kakao. It also emphasized, "If free-riding behavior is overlooked, innovation in the market will disappear in the long term."

The Fair Trade Commission imposed a corrective order and a fine of 1.032 billion KRW on Naver, stating that Naver violated the Fair Trade Act by blocking information provision to Kakao. Naver had partnered with real estate information companies to provide listing information services, but when Kakao tried to introduce a similar model in 2015, Naver allegedly used its market dominance to prevent real estate information companies from partnering with Kakao.

In response, Naver released a statement claiming, "The information that the Fair Trade Commission pointed out as 'not allowed to be provided to third parties' is the 'Verified Listing Information' service of Naver Real Estate, which Naver developed in 2009 at a cost of several billion KRW to eradicate false listings, making it the first in the industry to do so." It also explained, "Naver Real Estate's Verified Listing Information has received two related patents. Before its introduction, we proposed joint work with existing competitors, the real estate information companies, but since it was not accepted, we had no choice but to build it independently."

Furthermore, Naver argued, "Kakao tried to use Naver's Verified Listing Information without any cost or effort, and Naver included a 'prohibition on third-party provision clause' to prevent free-riding and protect intellectual property rights." It added, "At that time, Kakao was told by the Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization (KISO) that it needed to build a separate system to receive listing information directly, but there was no movement. Kakao's attempt to partner with Naver's affiliated companies was to easily secure verified listing information without incurring costs or efforts."

Naver stated, "If the results of innovation and effort that have earned user choice are ignored and free-riding behavior is overlooked, innovation in the market will disappear in the long term, and all competitors will expect free-riding." It concluded, "We will consider legal and institutional measures to protect our legitimate rights and ensure the healthy growth of real estate information services."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.