KFTC Launches a Market Survey on Data and Competition

Introduction

On May 23, 2025, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (“KFTC”) announced that it has commenced a comprehensive market survey of major data-related businesses. This initiative builds on the KFTC’s 2024 survey of the generative AI (“Gen AI”) market, aiming for a deeper dive into the transaction structures and competitive landscape of Korea’s data sector.

In its press release, the KFTC emphasizes the importance of data in the digital sector, noting that data is vital for developing foundation models in the Gen AI market and is a core asset across the entire digital economy, which powers everything from personalized advertising and content recommendations to service improvements driven by consumer behavior analysis and the development of new business strategies and services.

The KFTC also describes potential competition law issues, such as (i) concerns about data monopolization by a small number of dominant firms, (ii) the exclusion of competitors through restrictions on data access, and (iii) potential consumer harm from excessive data collection and use, and explains that other major competition authorities are stepping up their monitoring of unfair practices by businesses that leverage data.

The KFTC’s stated aims are to understand the current transaction practices and market conditions in the data sector, identify any unfair practices, and publish a policy report on promoting competition and consumer protection in this space.

Survey Scope and Key Areas

The KFTC determined the survey’s recipients and prepared the survey questions in consultation with academics and industry stakeholders. The survey will focus on major domestic and international businesses involved in data collection, storage, and utilization across seven key sectors:

Online Advertising Services
Social Networking Services
E-Commerce
Online Search Services
Online Messenger Services
App Marketplaces
Over-the-Top Services (“OTT”)

The KFTC plans to send written survey questionnaires to selected businesses, requesting relevant data. Key survey items include:

General overview of the recipient’s business
Methods and transaction structures for data collection, storage, processing, analysis, and utilization
Transaction status within each of the seven identified sectors
Experience of being subject to unfair trade practices

3.	Potential Competition and Consumer Issues Significantly, the KFTC announced it will proactively identify and analyze potential competition and consumer issues based on the survey results. The KFTC will likely be interested in issues such as:

The formation and reinforcement of market power regarding data collection and utilization
Anticompetitive conduct by vertically integrated data-rich firms, such as self-preferencing
The use of data in digital advertising
The use of web-crawled data for AI training

Additionally, the KFTC may be interested in competition concerns that may arise from data concentration resulting from mergers and acquisitions, as well as structural and institutional issues such as:

Barriers to entry for new and small businesses
The need to introduce measures to promote competition
How to harmonize and coordinate competition law and privacy law

Implications

The KFTC has announced that, based on the survey’s findings, it intends to explore policy directions that foster innovation and fair competition within data-driven digital industries. The KFTC will analyze the survey results, consult with academics and external experts, and publish a “Report on Data and Competition Policy” later this year.

Several points are noteworthy for firms in the targeted key sectors:

Likely Focus on AI: While “AI” is not explicitly listed among the seven industry sectors targeted by the survey, the KFTC’s press release highlights the importance of AI and data. Many major businesses in the targeted key sectors are also heavily engaged in AI development, and should be prepared to respond to questions on their data practices relating to AI.
Potential for Investigations: Since this market survey is being conducted by the KFTC’s Competition Policy Bureau, it will not directly trigger any investigations, but its stated goals include “identifying unfair practices” and “proactively detecting competition and consumer issues.” This means the KFTC’s investigation branch could potentially use the survey report results as a basis or guide for launching future investigations.

This proactive stance by the KFTC underscores the growing global focus on data governance and competition in the digital economy. Businesses operating in these sectors should review their data practices to assess compliance with current and evolving regulations and proactively prepare appropriate response measures.

Share

Professionals

Professionals