In 2020, South Korea passed a legal overhaul holding online content service providers liable if they fail to maintain stable services amid growing complaints against streaming giants Netflix and Google after their services have suffered breakdowns.
The revised law, informally dubbed the “Netflix Law” in the country, applies to online service companies that account for 1% or more of the country’s average daily data traffic in the last three months of the previous year and which have more than 1 million daily users.
Local streaming platform Wavve was excluded from the settlement this year because its average traffic was less than 1 million daily users.
The ministry said it had notified the five companies and would finalize the designation later this month after consultations with the companies.
The ministry said global tech giants accounted for a significant share of the country’s daily data traffic in the last three months of 2021, with Google accounting for 27.1%, followed by Netflix at 7.2% and Meta at 3. .5%.
Among local businesses, top portal operator Naver held the top spot with 2.1%, followed by rival Kakao with 1.2%, Yonhap news agency reports.
The five companies accounted for a total of 41.1% of the country’s average daily traffic over the period.
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