KFTC Publishes Policy Report on Data and Competition

On December 30, 2025, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (the “KFTC”) published a policy report on potential competition and consumer protection issues relating to data. Titled “Data and Competition” (the “Report”), the Report summarizes findings from written surveys, interviews with major digital businesses, and academic roundtables. It analyzes the current state of data-related competition in Korean digital markets and identifies emerging forms of anticompetitive conduct. While it is not legally binding, we expect the Report to play an influential role in shaping the KFTC’s future enforcement and policy priorities on data and competition.

Key contents of the Report are as follows.

Relationship between Data and Competition

The Report finds that data has become an important competitive instrument, as it creates unique economic value beyond a mere collection of information, due to inherent characteristics such as non-rivalry, scalability, and network effects.

In particular, while data can spur innovation and enhance consumer welfare, the Report warns that data monopolization by dominant firms can lead to anti-competitive effects — for example, by stifling market dynamism and creating high barriers to entry. The Report’s findings about the competitive effects of data are summarized below.

Category	Key Impacts
Positive Effects	Data plays a crucial role in enhancing service quality, delivering personalized products and services, and formulating business strategies. Data utilization generates various pro-competitive effects, such as increased market transparency and innovation. In particular, it supports consumer access to privacy-conscious services.
Negative Effects	The concentration of data within a dominant firm may constitute significant barriers to entry, potentially leading to the exclusion of competitors from the market.

2.	Major Competition and Consumer Issues Based on the KFTC’s survey and domestic and international case studies, the Report identifies the following six key issues related to data.

Issue	Core Concern	Domestic and International Regulatory Trends
Data Access Restrictions	Firms with large user bases may obstruct competitors’ data collection or refuse access to essential data.	To date, the prevailing view is that domestic firms have not faced major difficulties in collecting data. Abroad, the refusal to grant access to essential data has been treated as a breach of competition law.
Privacy-based Justification	Companies may use privacy protection as a pretext to grant exclusive data use privileges to their own services while imposing stricter standards on competitors. This “non neutral” practice restricts fair data collection.	The French competition authority imposed fines on a platform operator for requiring additional consent only when third party apps tracked user data. Some domestic businesses reported difficulties due to other businesses’ actions aimed at “strengthening” personal data protection.
Impediments to Interoperability	When a dominant platform restricts integration with other services, it can harm competition and potentially infringe upon consumers’ freedom of choice.	A fact-finding survey found that, domestically, the need for stronger interoperability was raised particularly in the app market and general search sectors. The KFTC plans to treat impediments to interoperability as a key indicator of abusive conduct. The EU and other jurisdictions impose ex-ante interoperability obligations on dominant platform operators, whereas the United States pursues ex-post competition law enforcement (with some lawsuits filed against platform operators for impeding interoperability).
Consumer Choice and Pricing	Data may be collected through “dark patterns,” or users may be effectively forced to consent to data combining as a condition of service. Dynamic pricing can have both pro-competitive and anti-competitive effects.	If dark patterns are used to induce consent, this may violate domestic laws such as the Act on Labeling and Advertising and the E-Commerce Act. German and EU competition authorities have sanctioned cases where dominant platforms forced users to integrate data from multiple services for targeted advertising.
Unlawful Concerted Practices	Data pooling: While sharing data among competitors can improve efficiency, it carries a risk of collusive information exchange if sensitive data (e.g., prices, transaction terms) is shared. Algorithmic collusion: This involves price coordination conducted through pricing algorithms.	In Korea, data pooling is not yet widespread. International authorities have been actively enforcing regulations against algorithmic collusion. The KFTC intends to strengthen its monitoring of tacit collusion facilitated by advanced pricing algorithms.
Mergers and Data Concentration	When data is combined through corporate mergers, concerns arise regarding market concentration, lock-in effects, and increased barriers to entry.	In its merger reviews of data platforms, the KFTC has closely examined the anti-competitive effects of data combination and has imposed remedies where necessary. The KFTC recognizes the need for comprehensive reviews regarding impacts on privacy and overall service quality.

Future Policy Directions and Implications

The KFTC indicated that it intends to translate the Report’s findings into concrete institutional reforms.

Revision of the Enforcement Decree: The KFTC will review establishing “conduct harming consumer interests” as a form of abuse of market dominance in the Enforcement Decree of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (the “FTL”).
Follow-up market studies: The KFTC will conducting additional research on competition conditions in downstream AI service sectors.
Strengthened inter-agency cooperation: The KFTC will collaborate with relevant agencies, such as the Personal Information Protection Commission, to address areas where competition promotion and privacy protection may intersect (aiming for the harmonization of competition and privacy laws).

The KFTC indicated that, to mitigate the limitations of ex-post regulation under the FTL, it will maintain rigorous monitoring systems to ensure prompt remedial action. Furthermore, it plans to issue advance guidelines on novel forms of anticompetitive conduct to encourage self-regulation and voluntary compliance. When potentially problematic market practices are identified, the KFTC will examine both their anti-competitive and pro-competitive effects.

Accordingly, companies operating data-driven businesses should prepare for the KFTC’s future enforcement direction by comprehensively reviewing and improving their internal compliance systems, specifically regarding: (i) data collection and usage procedures, (ii) interoperability and data access policies, (iii) data-sharing guidelines, and (iv) the competitive neutrality of privacy policies.

[Korean Version]

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