Assemblyman Byeon Jae-il: "Google Donates 1.7 Billion Won to Open Net"

by Oh Suyon

Published 24 Apr.2023 17:42(KST)

Byun Jae-il, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Communications Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, announced on the 24th that Open Net, a public interest corporation criticized for internal accounting fraud and opaque operations, re-disclosed the 2017 financial statements it had omitted, revealing that Google's sponsorship amounted to 1.7 billion KRW.

During last year's committee audit, Rep. Byun raised suspicions that Google Korea, Open Net's largest sponsor, was using Open Net to incite public opposition against the 'Network Usage Fee Bill.' At that time, Rep. Byun revealed through National Tax Service data that Google had sponsored Open Net with 1.36 billion KRW over nine years from 2013 to 2021. As Open Net corrected previously omitted donation details, it was found that the scale of Google's sponsorship was even larger.

[Table=Office of Representative Byeon Jae-il]

Established in 2013, Open Net claims to be a non-profit corporation aiming for freedom, openness, and sharing of the internet, but it took a leading role in opposing the 'Network Usage Fee Bill' discussed in the National Assembly last year. It conducted an online signature campaign aligned with the interests of Google and Netflix, and recently, it is also suspected of publishing pro-big tech columns after receiving about 20 million KRW in sponsorship from Netflix on the condition of a business trip to the Mobile World Congress (MWC).

Rep. Byun pointed out that Open Net only re-disclosed the 2017 financial statements among the controversial documents, but has not re-disclosed the 2018 documents, which entirely omitted the donation expenditure details. He said, "Failing to properly disclose financial statements, which is a legal obligation, is a serious violation that could lead to the cancellation of the public interest corporation status, yet Open Net's poor disclosure of financial data has been neglected for years." He added, "If Open Net continues to intentionally omit data and fails to transparently disclose its accounting as a public interest corporation, I will consider requesting the Seoul Radio Management Office and the National Tax Service, the competent authorities, to investigate and take firm action."