Monday, December 2, 2013

ICT Deregulation in Korea?

One of the profound ironies of Korea's nascent information society is that it possesses the world's most advanced digital network infrastructure, but at the same time maintains outdated laws and regulations that seek to restrict public use of that infrastructure.  As pointed out in an article published today by Business Korea, this poses a serious problem for the Park Geun-hye administration in its efforts to promote a creative economy.  More specifically, the government's outdated regulatory policies have resulted in what the article calls "reverse discrimination" against local firms.
The second paragraph of the article reads as follows.
"The purpose of the first Internet industry deregulation plan is to get rid of restrictions that cause reverse discrimination or shrinkage in industrial activities and address the flaws of the government’s current regulations such as the Real-name Internet System and the Recommendation for Internet Search Improvement. The Real-name Internet System, put in force back in April 2009, has resulted in a collapse of local video websites while anonymity-based YouTube increased its market share in Korea from 2% to 70% during the same period."
The real-name system is only one of several major internet regulatory laws that seem to work at cross purposes with the current government's overall policy.  More on this topic in future posts.

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