디지털플랫폼의 불공정거래 규제에 관한 고찰

The Fair Trade Act is the legal norm for ensuring fair competition in the market and protecting consumer rights. In today’s digital era, as the market environment and business models have changed significantly, existing regulations alone are insufficient, and there is a need to establish new types of unfair trade practices that are suitable for digital platforms. Since violations of unfair trade practices are crimes subject to criminal punishment, the principle of legality should be applied, so analogical application of existing regulations is difficult, and new types of prohibitions are necessary. Acts that need to be added in relation to digital platforms under the Fair Trade Act include abuse of market dominance by digital platforms, data monopoly and discriminatory access, fairness issues with algorithms and AI, dark patterns, manipulation of online reviews and ratings, and unsustainable business models. These acts are becoming increasingly important with the development of the digital economy, and it is believed that they should be appropriately responded to through revisions to the Fair Trade Act or introduction of new regulations. Legislative measures to add unfair trade types of digital platforms include introducing specific regulations to prevent abuse of market dominance of digital platforms, establishing a legal framework to ensure fair accessibility and mobility of data to resolve data monopoly issues, establishing regulations to ensure transparency and accountability in algorithm design and operation, establishing guidelines and regulations to ensure ethical use of artificial intelligence technology, and strengthening legal devices to protect consumers’ rights and choices. In addition to strengthening such legal regulations, a system to quickly detect unfair trade practices occurring in the platform market should be established, and incentives to encourage companies to voluntarily adopt fair trade practices should be provided, as a policy. In short, legislation on unfair trade of digital platforms is an essential task to ensure fair competition and consumer protection in line with the changing market environment and technological development, so stakeholders should cooperate to establish a legal framework and thereby strengthen market transparency and fairness.