Fair Trade Commission to Investigate Transaction Practices on Delivery Apps, Accommodation Apps, and SNS Online Platforms

Research Service Order on Consumer Issues in Online Platform Transactions

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is set to investigate the transaction practices of online platforms such as delivery and accommodation applications, as well as social networking services (SNS).

According to the Public Procurement Service's Nara Marketplace on the 26th, the FTC recently commissioned a research project titled "A Study on Consumer Issues in Online Platform Transactions."

In the task directive, the FTC explained the necessity of this research project by stating, "While the structure of e-commerce is being reorganized around platforms, there has been a lack of systematic research on related transaction practices and consumer issues." Since 2018, about 40 field surveys on e-commerce have been conducted mainly by the Korea Consumer Agency and the Consumer Federation of Korea, but most of these were limited to specific business types (open markets, SNS) or specific issues (search advertising, overseas direct purchases), making it difficult to grasp consumer issues across the entire platform market.

Therefore, this research project aims to identify consumer issues that may arise across the entire platform market and find solutions.

Through this research, the transaction practices related to platforms and consumers' experiences and perceptions will be investigated, and policy implications will be derived based on the results.

Specifically, the study will examine eight business types: open markets, app markets, delivery apps, accommodation apps, price comparison sites, SNS, consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions, and live commerce. It will review market conditions, transaction methods, the degree of platform involvement in transactions, major types of disputes and their resolution procedures. Additionally, it will investigate market size indicators such as sales and number of users, main revenue models, and transaction types by business type. Alongside this, recent policy trends, legislative cases, and legislative trends related to platforms in the European Union (EU), China, Japan, and other regions will be analyzed, including key case studies and implications. This research project is scheduled to be completed by December 15 of this year.

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