[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] The government has released guidelines to enhance the effectiveness of the so-called 'Netflix Act,' established amid controversies over Netflix's free-riding on network usage, as it marks one year since its implementation. Target companies such as Google, Netflix, and Naver must notify the public on their main service page and SNS accounts about the time, details, causes, and contact information for consultations whenever service disruptions occur, and must also implement redundancy for content storage.
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 7th that it has prepared these guidelines to improve the effectiveness of the service stability assurance system for value-added telecommunications service providers under Article 22-7 of the Telecommunications Business Act.
The amended Telecommunications Business Act, which has been in effect for one year, requires large value-added telecommunications service providers to take necessary measures to provide convenient and stable services to users. This year’s applicable companies include Google, Netflix, Meta (formerly Facebook), Naver, Kakao, and Contents Wave, totaling six providers. A total of 15 service disruption cases have been recorded over the past year since the law’s enforcement.
To enhance the system’s effectiveness, the Ministry of Science and ICT has prepared the ‘Guidelines for Ensuring Service Stability of Value-Added Telecommunications Service Providers,’ consisting of six chapters, which all value-added service providers can refer to and act upon. The guidelines focus on examples and procedures to make it easy for anyone to understand measures such as securing service stability means (Chapter 3) and handling user requests (Chapter 4), which are mandated by law.
According to the guidelines, the target companies must strengthen pre-error verification to prevent clearly incorrect settings caused by human error, and implement redundancy in content storage to enable rapid recovery of content in case of service disruptions. They must also secure sufficient server capacity to accommodate a large number of simultaneous users.
Furthermore, in the event of a disruption, companies must promptly notify the facts, time, causes, measures taken, and contact information for consultations in Korean on the service’s main page and their active SNS accounts. If backup methods for users’ photos and other data are provided in preparation for SNS service suspension or closure, the transmission targets and methods must also be specified.
Additionally, the guidelines specify that commonly used payment methods such as credit cards, telecommunication billing services, bank transfers, and simple payment options must be provided when paying usage fees. They also include provisions allowing the Ministry of Science and ICT to request related compliance materials from value-added service providers in case of service disruptions.
Jung Chang-rim, Director of Telecommunications Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “Since last year’s amendment of the Telecommunications Business Act to ensure the stability of value-added telecommunications services, many large and small disruptions have been properly addressed thanks to the active cooperation of service providers. We hope that the newly established guidelines will serve as a helpful manual for value-added and fixed-line telecommunications providers to collaborate closely and deliver stable, high-quality services.”
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