기업결합 심사에 있어서 빅데이터의 경쟁법적 의미 - 최근 해외 주요 기업결합 사례를 중심으로 -

Online-businesses have focused on collecting and commercialization of data. The amount of data that online-businesses have collected has increased rapidly. At a low cost, consumers can enjoy benefits of the big data that online-businesses have constructed. Indeed, big data can facilitate innovation in daily life. The presence of big data and its derivative phenomenon, however, can generate negative aspects as well. In competition law, a potential problem arising from big data relates to issues on monopoly. So far, the discussion about big data has been focused on two aspects, i.e., data disclosure and privacy. In other words, regulatory agencies in major jurisdictions (including Korea) have not paid attention to exploring big data issues in the context of competition law. Recently, however, the data collection by large online-businesses such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon, raises a question of whether competition law should apply to commercial entities’ data collection. It seems that so far there is no case that competition law enforcement agencies or courts directly cover this type of question and issues. However, policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars in competition law have been increasingly interested in potential issues that big data may generate in relation to competition law. In the absence of a real competition law case, one may interpret that competition law is not suitable to regulate phenomena deriving from big data and online businesses that construct big data. In addition, there are few studies, if any, which examine in depth competition law issues relating to big data. In this sense, it would be difficult for competition law to apply to big data in the sense that big data actually generates damages to consumers and limits competition. Nonetheless, it is necessary for the academia and competition law agencies to pay attention to the trend and issues of big data.