Prosecution Indicts Coupang for Manipulating PB Product Search Rankings

Arbitrary Adjustment of Search Rankings for Over 50,000 Products
Base Scores for Search Rankings Increased by Up to 1.5 Times

The prosecution has brought charges against Coupang Corporation for allegedly manipulating the search rankings of its private brand (PB) products to give them priority exposure.

On May 1, the Criminal Division 6 of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office (headed by Chief Prosecutor Lee Sanghyeok) announced that Coupang and its PB product subsidiary, CPLB, have been indicted on charges of violating the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act.

Investigations revealed that from March 2019 to November 2024, Coupang arbitrarily adjusted or fixed the search rankings of 51,300 directly purchased and PB products a total of 160,000 times.

The prosecution believes that Coupang adjusted the search rankings by increasing the base scores of these two product categories by up to 1.5 times.

Previously, in June of last year, the Fair Trade Commission imposed a fine and filed a complaint with the prosecution, stating that Coupang had manipulated search ranking algorithms to boost PB product sales and mobilized employees to post positive purchase reviews and assign high ratings.

However, the prosecution concluded that, for some of the algorithms reported by the Fair Trade Commission, there was insufficient evidence to prove that Coupang intentionally adjusted the search rankings of only its own products in a manner inconsistent with what was disclosed to consumers.

Regarding the mobilization of employees to write PB product reviews, the prosecution decided not to indict, finding insufficient evidence to conclude that positive reviews were forcibly written to influence search rankings.