디지털 인플루언서 마케팅과 전자상거래 소비자보호법 상 규율 - 경제적 대가를 표시하지 않은 기만광고 관련 규제를 중심으로 -

It is beyond doubt that the topics on practices of digital influencer marketing, especially of misleading contents, have brought numerous critical issues relating to consumer protection. In particular, the rapid development of ICT and online platform of social media has influenced the progress of e-commerce and its involving legal issues of comsumer protection acts around the world, and the case in Korea is not an exception. On the one hand, the recent development of e-commerce through digital influencer marketing or viral marketing has improved inter-brand competition and distribution in the relevant market because the advertising costs have been reduced when using viral marketing. The reduction of advertising costs enables small traders to enter the market. Moreover, consumers have more chances to receive sufficient information about goods and services that they are interested in. In summary, the emergence of viral marketing has enhanced efficiencies including consumer welfare improvement. On the other hand, e-commerce through using digital influencer marketing has brought notable consumer protection problems, particularly when traders and endorsers do not disclose their economic relations. Influencers can frequently reach a large audience, and their posts are usually considered as trustworthy contents, which may mislead consumers about the economic characters of the posts. In other words, where there is no clarification of economic relations, consumers often believe that the posts of influencers are non-commercial contents, which may harm consumer interests. Therefore, a regulatory framework normally includes the prevention of unfair or misleading posts of digital influencers, thereby protecting consumers from non-disclosure of economic relations between endorsers and traders. However, the current legal provisions are not applied to influencers but only to traders for non-disclosure practices. The purpose of this work is to discuss the existing problems of regulating non-disclosure of economic relations between endorsers and traders and to suggest proposals for amending the e-commerce law provisions, thereby to impose special responsibilities on digital influencers that can largely affect purchasing decisions of consumers. In particular, this article argues that the Korean e-commerce law should be applicable not only to traders but also to influencers for the violation of Article 21 of the law because an influencer often aims to share profits with social media platforms through being popular in SNS and to use his or her position to receive economic benefits from posting advertisements on the websites by contracting traders. To conclude, expansion of the regulatory scope to digital influencers can ensure consumer sovereignty in the digital era.