[2023 National Audit] "Google and Meta Ignoring Korean Laws, What Is the Ministry of Science and ICT Doing?"

"Don't Even Know Meta Agent Contact" Criticized at National Audit
Google Submitted Disaster Management in English, Ordered to Correct

Multinational corporations Google and Meta have been criticized during the National Assembly audit for failing to properly fulfill their obligations under domestic law, raising concerns about user inconvenience.

The National Assembly Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee conducted a comprehensive audit of the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 27th.

At the session, independent lawmaker Park Wan-joo pointed out that the Ministry of Science and ICT has not even secured the domestic contact information of global platform operators such as Meta Platforms, which are obligated to designate domestic agents under the Telecommunications Business Act.

Lawmaker Park said, "When I called Meta's agent office, an automated response system (ARS) answered. It is doubtful whether users can receive damage relief," raising his voice, calling it "dereliction of duty by the Ministry of Science and ICT."

He explained that although he tried to contact Meta, he could not speak to a person in charge due to the ARS connection and is communicating through 'Facebook Korea.' Facebook Korea is only responsible for domestic advertising sales and business, and has taken the position that it "does not know" about the matter.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Furthermore, Meta sparked controversy by expressing its stance not to comply with Korean law regarding regulations newly established by the government to prevent recurrence of incidents similar to last year's fire at the Pangyo data center.

Last year, the Framework Act on Broadcasting and Communications Development was amended, requiring businesses above a certain scale to establish a Broadcasting and Communications Disaster Management Plan (Disaster Management Plan) and submit it to the Ministry of Science and ICT by the end of September each year starting this year.

However, according to Democratic Party lawmaker Jeong Pil-mo, Meta revealed its position of not complying with Korean law when submitting the disaster management plan.

Meta explained, "All of our data centers are located overseas, and there is no dedicated data center solely for providing services to Korean users."

It added, "While we are submitting the disaster management plan as a gesture of cooperation, since all our data centers are located overseas, we are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Framework Act on Broadcasting and Communications Development."

In response, the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "Meta, as a major broadcasting and communications business operator, must establish and submit a disaster management plan to the Ministry of Science and ICT in accordance with Article 36, Paragraph 2 of the Broadcasting and Communications Development Act."

It also said, "Regardless of the location of the data centers, operators are selected based on the number of domestic users and traffic volume proportion," and "We can guide and inspect Meta's compliance with disaster management, and order corrections for any deficiencies found during inspections."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Another issue is that Google and Meta submitted their disaster management plans in English. However, Meta submitted the English plan as the original document and attached a Korean translation as a reference.

It is unusual for global operators to submit official documents to the Korean government in English rather than Korean. This contrasts with Amazon and Netflix, which prepared their plans in Korean.

The Ministry of Science and ICT found Google's submitted disaster management plan to be poorly prepared and issued a correction order.

Lawmaker Jeong emphasized, "Multinational companies such as Google and Meta must comply with Korean law in their business operations," adding, "The Ministry of Science and ICT must use its legal authority to improve the issues without worrying about anyone's pressure."

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