Strengthening User Notification Obligations for Suspension of Value-Added Communication Services
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) is pushing to amend the Enforcement Decree of the Telecommunications Business Act to prevent damages caused by digital platform service failures, such as the 'KakaoTalk outage.' The obligation for value-added telecommunications service providers to notify users will be strengthened from the current 'suspension of paid services for 4 hours or more' to 'suspension of paid and free services for 2 hours or more.'
On the 5th, the KCC announced measures to strengthen user protection related to digital platform service failures based on this content.
Regarding the choice of '2 hours or more' as the standard, the KCC explained, "This considers various factors such as the time required to identify the cause of the suspension and the difficulty in finding legislative cases overseas that require user notification beyond government reporting obligations for telecommunications failures of a certain scale or more."
The KCC also plans to limit excessive indemnity exemptions for service providers to ensure practical damage relief and to encourage improvements in terms of service by clarifying vague terms and damage compensation standards.
In particular, the standard for compensation will be strengthened from compensating only in cases of 'gross negligence' to compensating whenever there is 'negligence.' The KCC will recommend major platform operators to improve regulations that have considered data center and DDoS-related failures as force majeure exemptions, so that compensation responsibility is assumed first if negligence is found.
Additionally, the KCC plans to review legal and institutional improvement measures to strengthen damage relief caused by service failures.
Furthermore, the existing method, where service interruptions caused by the same reason affect many users but damages must be individually compensated, will be improved.
The KCC intends to introduce a collective dispute mediation system so that many users or groups can apply for collective compensation and resolve issues quickly and economically.
The KCC will also conduct evaluations of user protection tasks for large-scale digital platforms to encourage user protection and service stability, and prepare guidelines outlining how the public and private sectors can jointly respond from the occurrence of service failures to damage relief.
Lee Dong-kwan, Chairman of the KCC, stated, "As digital platform services expand their influence across various areas of daily life for the public, they must fulfill their corresponding social responsibilities. The KCC will do its utmost to prevent user damages caused by digital platform service failures and provide practical damage relief."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
