Naver, Coupang, and Others to Strengthen 'Voluntary Efforts to Block Distribution of Harmful Products'

Fair Trade Commission Signs 'Voluntary Product Safety Agreement' with 5 Open Market Operators

Jongwook Cho, Chairman of the Korea Fair Trade Commission. (File photo)

[Gyejong=Asia Economy Reporter Ju Sang-don] Five open market operators, including Naver, 11st, eBay Korea, Interpark, and Coupang, have decided to strengthen consumer safety by blocking the distribution and sale of hazardous products and preventing the redistribution of blocked products.

On the 22nd, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it had signed a "Voluntary Product Safety Agreement" with the five open market operators containing these details.

With the recent expansion of digital non-face-to-face transactions, the overall scale of online shopping in Korea, including overseas direct purchases and proxy purchases through overseas direct buying, continues to increase. The scale of domestic online shopping grew from 114 trillion won in 2018 to 161 trillion won last year, while online overseas direct purchases increased from 2.9 trillion won to 4.1 trillion won during the same period.

An FTC official explained, "As online transactions increase, consumer damages are also gradually rising," adding, "In particular, consumer damages related to hazardous products are directly related to consumers' lives and bodies, making measures to protect consumers even more urgent."

Accordingly, the FTC, the Korea Consumer Agency, and the five open market operators prepared eight voluntary agreement plans based on the draft statement of the OECD's product safety pledge. Specifically, these include ▲blocking the distribution and sale of hazardous products and preventing the redistribution of blocked products ▲providing consumer information on recalls or corrective actions for hazardous products ▲establishing measures against habitual violators who repeatedly sell hazardous products.

In his welcoming remarks, FTC Chairman Cho Sung-wook said, "Protecting consumers from hazardous products is already a global trend, and consumer safety should no longer be regarded as a cost but rather as a carefully designed mechanism for consumer protection," adding, "Minimum essential requirements that are difficult to entrust solely to voluntary measures will be legally established through the comprehensive revision of the Electronic Commerce Act."

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