인터넷 검색사업자의 경쟁법적 규제에 관한 연구 - 검색중립성 논의와 규제사례 및 그 시사점을 중심으로 -

There has been a hot debate on regulating search biases by dominant search engines on domestic level as well as on international level. The discussion has been made not only from competition law perspective but also from various other perspectives including political rights and protection of small-and-medium sized companies. However, discussion on the issue has come to focus on competitive aspects of search biases. This article summarizes characteristics of internet search markets and major competitive concerns related with internet search engines and reviews policy and legal discussions on the search neutrality principle including ex ante regulation of search engines and ex post competition law enforcement against them. This article also analyzes competition law enforcement activities against dominant search engines like Google and Naver by major competition law authorities such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and the Korea Fair Trade Commission. In the light of the foregoing discussion and analysis, several suggestions are made with respect to regulatory policy on search engines and competition law enforcement against them. The critics argue that dominant search engine may harm their rivals in search market. However, we need to distinguish between monopolization through unlawful means and growth from meritorious rivalry. The impatient intervention by regulators would punish search engines and deter the procompetitive and welfare-enhancing innovations and would weaken dynamic competition. There are many other considerations in evaluating market dominance in search engine market including the facts that consumers can switch to substitute search engines instantaneously and at zero cost. In conclusion, we don't have sufficient evidence needed to judge whether the practices of search engines are anticompetitive or procompetitive.