[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] Concerns were raised during the National Assembly audit that the numerous sanctions against public home shopping for false and exaggerated advertisements highlight the need for measures to strengthen public accountability.
On the 19th, Song Gap-seok, a member of the National Assembly's Industry, Resources, Trade, and Small and Medium Venture Business Committee (Democratic Party, Gwangju Seo-gu Gap), revealed data titled 'Broadcasting and Communications Review Committee Deliberation and Sanction Status' submitted by Public Home Shopping. According to the data, Public Home Shopping received a total of 23 deliberations and sanctions from the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) from 2018 to September this year, including 8 legal sanctions. This number exceeds that of private home shopping channels such as SK Store with 18 cases and Shinsegae Home Shopping with 14 cases.
The most frequent sanctions were for false advertising, accounting for 11 cases, or half of the total. Most involved false advertisements portraying products available for rebroadcast and online purchase as the final broadcast, or promoting general food products as health foods effective for disease treatment. There were also 11 cases of exaggerated advertising. These included deceptive advertisements that overstated the weight and product composition of items being sold or misled consumers about product performance without disclosing that scenes were staged. Additionally, there were two broadcasting accidents where transmission was interrupted, resulting in legal sanctions.
Assemblyman Song Gap-seok pointed out, "Measures to strengthen public accountability, such as pre-broadcast inspections, regular consumer committee meetings, and stricter disciplinary actions against related personnel, must be established to correct the repeated deceptive acts against consumers."
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