[2023 National Audit] "Google, No Network Usage Fee Despite Being No.1 in Domestic Traffic"

On the 26th, Kim Byung-wook, a member of the People Power Party, stated that Google holds the largest share among foreign companies in domestic network traffic but does not pay network usage fees.

According to data Kim received from the Ministry of Science and ICT, Google accounts for 28.6% of domestic network traffic, the largest share among foreign operators. Following Google, Netflix holds 5.5%, Meta (Facebook) 4.3%, Amazon 3.2%, Apple 0.3%, and others 6.9%. The difference between Google and second-place Netflix is more than fivefold.

According to the '2023 First Half Mobile App Summary' released in July by the real-time data-based market analysis company WiseApp·Retail·Goods, an average of 46.08 million Koreans used YouTube 12.6 billion times per month for a total of 97.1 billion minutes.

Kim said, "Due to YouTube's significant influence, Google's share of domestic traffic is inevitably large," adding, "However, among foreign companies, Google is the only one that does not pay any network usage fees in our country."

Kim also stated, "Google paying network usage fees in the US and Europe but not in South Korea treats our country as a pushover," and added, "The damage caused by Google's unfair practices ultimately falls on us, the consumers, and domestic businesses are also unfairly disadvantaged. We must promptly seek legal measures to ensure Google pays a fair price for network usage."