Netflix unaffected by S. Korea's strengthened rule on quality control

Korean lawmakers are preparing a separate regulation targeting Netflix, which remains incompliant to demands to correct free-riding on local networks regardless of a revised telecommunications business act enforcement to regulate the global streaming-on-demand giant.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on Monday, Netflix was the only company that has remained unaffected among the six major content providers subject to liability for the maintenance of network and service stability under the revised rule as Netflix has not caused any connection errors or poor service quality since the law took effective a year ago.

All other five companies violated the rule 15 times in total due to service or connection errors. Kakao topped the list with five-time violations. Google, Naver and Meta tied with three times followed by Wavve with one time.

Under the law, the large content providers must come up with a plan to secure service stability, and when a service failure occurs, the government can issue a corrective order and impose a fine for negligence.

Google became the first company that received a correction order under the law due to its service failures with YouTube, Calendar, and Gmail in December last year. Against this backdrop, the net free-riding controversy sparked by Netflix has grown rather than resolved. A series of bills were recently introduced to tighten regulations on Netflix. The bills stipulate direct payment of network usage fees and mandatory contracts for payment by large content providers beyond their duty to keep service quality.

The legislative move, however, also causes concerns that hasty legislation may hinder industrial development, contrary to its purpose.

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