On February 24, 2022, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (the “KFTC”) announced its plans to conduct a survey on major cloud service providers, business customers of cloud services, and other stakeholders in the cloud industry starting on the day of the announcement (the “Survey”).
This will be the first survey conducted pursuant to Article 87(1) of the amended Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, and carried out in two steps: conduct surveys of (i) major cloud service providers (Step 1) and then (ii) other stakeholders (Step 2). The key details of the Survey are as follows.
1. Target Companies
Step 1 will target 32 major cloud service providers with significant revenues in each cloud service type (i.e., IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) while Step 2 will target business customers of cloud services, sales partners, and cloud software suppliers.
2. Subject of Survey
The KFTC seeks to identify the competitive dynamics, transaction structure and any areas for improvement in the cloud industry and other related industries.
Specifically, the KFTC seeks to (i) identify market trends including key terms of service offered by cloud service providers, size of their revenues, transaction structure between cloud service providers and their customers or business partners, and method of price competition, and (ii) inspect transactions and any unfair trade practices in the cloud industry, including self-preferencing.
Examples of the survey items announced by the KFTC are as follows:
| Step | Target | Survey Items |
| Step 1 | Cloud service providers | Cloud services currently offered and any related products; revenues by each service type and distribution channel; service plans and fee standards; customers and sales partners; conditions and fees for cloud switching/migration |
| Step 2 | Business customers of cloud services, cloud sales partners, cloud software suppliers, etc. | Conditions for registration on platforms; technical restrictions; any disadvantages experienced in using cloud services; suggestions |
3. Next Steps
The KFTC will request information to the extent necessary to analyze the competitive dynamics and identify areas for improvement in the cloud industry, and provide sufficient time for the target companies to prepare responses to the Survey. The KFTC plans to announce the results around December 2022 upon completion of the Survey and analysis of the responses.
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