[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] A so-called 'Google Agent Act' has been proposed to prevent overseas operators such as Google and Apple from evading the obligation to designate domestic agents.
On the 3rd, Kim Young-sik, a member of the People Power Party, announced that he had proposed a partial amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act containing this provision.
The domestic agent system was established in September 2018 to strengthen the responsibility of overseas operators to protect users as the use of global online services became widespread. According to this system, information and communication service providers without an address or office in Korea must designate a domestic agent.
However, overseas operators entering the domestic market are currently evading this obligation by using paper companies. According to data obtained by Representative Kim from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Korea Communications Commission, and the Personal Information Protection Commission, the domestic agents of nine companies including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple were confirmed to be corporations using the same address.
According to the corporate registry, the establishment type and timing are similar, and the purpose of establishment is uniformly stated as being established for domestic agent duties.
Representative Kim pointed out, "Overseas companies that do not properly pay taxes in Korea are abusing the agent system, which is the minimum user protection device, to use tricks."
The amendment requires that when designating a domestic agent, if there is a domestic corporation or a corporation that exerts dominant influence over the composition of executives or business operations, that corporation must be designated as the agent. In other words, overseas operators must designate companies such as Google Korea, Apple Korea, and Facebook Korea as their agents.
Representative Kim stated, "If a separate corporation is established solely for agent duties, it can slip away like a loach even if it violates domestic laws," and added, "To prevent this, we will make it mandatory that domestic corporations like Google Korea can be designated as agents."
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