온라인 소비자 리뷰의 법률문제: 소비자의 표현의 자유와 사업자의 명예보호 및 인터넷 사업자의 책임 사이의 충돌 문제를 중심으로

Nowadays the ‘online consumer review’ (“consumer reviews”) is flourishing, and its influence is still increasing. It is reported that 80% of consumers always check the consumer reviews before purchasing products and services. Concerned about the impact, business operators providing goods or services attempt to remove the negative consumer reviews using ‘temporary measure’ (or ‘temporary blind’) based on Article 44-2 of the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, Etc.(“Network Act”). Online Service Providers(“OSPs”) usually apply ‘temporary blind’ to consumer reviews by reason that they cannot decide whether the reviews violate the defamation law or not. On the other hand, consumers claim that ‘temporary blind’ restricts the consumers’ freedom of speech. Even though pre-restrictions on consumer reviews such as ‘temporary blind’ by the OSPs are being widely applied, the courts have ruled in several consumer review cases that consumers’ freedom of speech should be strongly protected prior to the business operators’ reputation. There exists a significant gap between the reality and the court's ruling. According to the courts, limited use of the ‘temporary blind’ on the consumer reviews should only be permitted. However, it is hard to expect for the OSPs to set a limit on applying ‘temporary blind’ to consumer reviews because it would be difficult for the OSPs to distinguish defamatory reviews from the others. This article analyzes the meaning of the consumer reviews, and seeks for reasonable solutions that will coordinate various interests between the business operators, the reviewers and OSPs, and especially, solutions that will resolve the conflict arisen from ‘temporary blind’ between the business operators and the reviewers.