FTC to look further into Google and Facebook’s advertising practices

The Fair Trade Commission of South Korea is expected to survey the local digital advertising market to uncover any unfair practices on the part of major platform operators such as Google and Facebook.

According to government officials Tuesday, the antitrust watchdog has commissioned research on potential antitrust issues in the local advertising market. It will include in-depth interviews with advertisers, ad agencies and consumers.

The US-based internet giants Google and Facebook are among those platform operators that will be under the microscope, they added.

The study is in addition to the commission’s ongoing investigation to see if Google and Facebook forced local firms to advertise exclusively on their platforms by threatening to deny access to their user base.

Through the survey, the agency hopes to get a broader look at the local digital advertising industry.

It will cover overall business practices in the local digital advertising industry, including how platforms rent advertising space, how they settle payments, how they set prices and whether platforms provide enough information before signing ad contracts.

The FTC also plans to look into the terms and conditions of ad contracts to see if they violate antitrust regulations.

The body also wants to see if users are properly informed that their activity on the platform, such as log records and recently visited pages, can be used for advertising and marketing purposes.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)