소비자보호의 관점에서 본 디지털 융합 콘텐츠 이용

With the development of convergence in IT and media services, innovative products and services are offered to consumers. These new experiences provide consumers many new benefits but at the same time create new problems for them. If legal and societal regulations fall behind of the development of technology, consumer rights and sovereignty may be undermined. In this respect, analyzing the impact of technology development from consumer protection perspective is useful in making sure that the technology development is going in the right direction for the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life. This study aims to provide an overview of 1) the concept and the development of ‘convergent environment’, 2) the current status of convergent services provided and their usage by consumers, and 3) consumer protection issues that are raised as convergent environment develops. The major conclusion of the study is that as in convergent environment, the roles of consumer are converging, too. Consumers play the roles of viewer, user, consumer(purchaser) and subscriber at the same time when they use digital convergent content and thus a comprehensive approach is needed in provision of consumer protection in convergent environment.