Google Korea Returns as Vice Chairman Member of Korea Internet Corporations Association After 10 Years

KIPRA Approves Promotion to Vice Chairman Company on the 1st

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Google Korea, the Korean branch of Google, has returned as a vice-chair company of the Korea Internet Corporations Association (KICA) after 10 years.

According to the IT industry on the 5th, KICA held a board meeting at the Gravity Seoul Pangyo Hotel on the evening of the 1st and approved Google Korea's promotion to vice-chair company.

This marks 10 years since Google voluntarily stepped down from the vice-chair position. Google became a vice-chair company of KICA in 2008 but withdrew in 2013 due to backlash over restrictions on the overseas export of domestic map data and conflicts with local IT companies.

There have also been changes in the board composition. Among the 11 vice-chair companies participating in KICA board resolutions, four are overseas big tech companies: American-based Google Korea, Netflix, Meta Korea, and ByteDance, a Chinese company operating TikTok.

Some in the market predict that the influence of overseas big tech companies within KICA will strengthen. Conversely, there is also an analysis that Google Korea's interest in the domestic market has increased, raising expectations that voices for the development of the domestic IT industry will grow.

An IT industry official said, "It seems that interest in the domestic market has increased. We hope they will raise their voices in a direction that promotes mutual development as peers in the same industry."

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