검색 중립성과 경쟁법 집행원리

The concept of “search neutrality” is currently resonating in Korea as a guiding principle for competition law and/or digital platform regulation. The Korea Communications Commission adopted the so-called platform neutrality guidelines in 2017 and Korea’s competition authority, the Korea Fair Trade Commission, is likely to bring a competition action against search engines and platforms on the potential allegation of ‘non-neutral’ practices. Against this backdrop, the present paper questions the appropriateness of the concept of “search neutrality” as a guiding principle for Korea’s competition law and/or government regulation. To answer to that question, this article explores theoretical literature concerning the meaning of ‘search neutrality’ and examines the experiences of the United States (‘US’) and the European Union (‘EU’) in which the neutrality concept emerged, and concerns with search bias have been discussed in terms of ex ante and/or ex post regulation. Through this, the appropriateness and feasibility of search neutrality as a competition and/or regulation principle is analysed and reviewed. The research findings firstly show that the concept of search neutrality, in contrast to the analogous concept ‘net neutrality’, comprises a serious problem of definitional ambiguity and is based on the groundless premise that search services are indispensable or essential. Secondly, it is found that search neutrality has failed to guide competition policy and regulation in the US and the EU. Although the EU’s new Platform Regulation (Reg.2019/1150) and the Commission’s decision on Google’s self-preferencing may, to some extent, be pertinent to the search bias concerns, the authors clarify distinctions between search neutrality advocacy and the EU’s digital policy. As a conclusion, this study argues that any regulatory restraint towards search engines based on neutrality would be permissible and feasible only if it sticks to the basic principles of competition law, id est, the protection of consumer welfare or that of effective competition structure.