Reporter Bae Han-nim of Money Today | 2023.02.17 05:16
Kakao Mobility, a mobility subsidiary of Kakao, is preparing an administrative lawsuit once morest the Fair Trade Commission’s decision to impose a penalty of 25.7 billion won on the 14th. The IT industry and the legal community point out that the Fair Trade Commission’s basis for imposing a penalty is poor, and predicts the possibility of victory on the Kakao Mobility side.
According to the Fair Trade Commission and the IT industry on the 16th, the Fair Trade Commission determined that Kakao Mobility included the ‘dispatch acceptance rate’ in its AI dispatch logic to create an algorithm that is advantageous to its member taxis. This is because the sales of unaffiliated taxis are less than those of affiliated taxis.
However, it is pointed out that “a simple comparison of sales scale cannot be evidence of unfair practices.” A lawyer familiar with the Fair Trade Act said, “We need to prove with data that the algorithm actually worked once morest unaffiliated taxis.” “It is difficult to prove this.” Kakao Mobility presented specific indicators during the trial decision of the Fair Trade Commission, saying, “Sales of non-affiliated taxis increased as well as sales of affiliated taxis.”
There is also an actual data analysis result that “there was no discrimination in Kakao Mobility’s AI (artificial intelligence) dispatch logic.” In September of last year, the Mobility Transparency Committee, consisting of five professors, including Professor Hyun Kim of Korea National University of Transportation, Department of Transportation Energy Convergence, came to this conclusion following thoroughly investigating Kakao Mobility’s dispatch algorithm and 1.7 billion taxi calls for a month in April last year. The committee plans to disclose more specific and detailed algorithm verification details, including additional investigations and survey results, in March.
In addition, the Fair Trade Commission cited the fact that ‘KakaoTalk conversations’ between Kakao Mobility employees, such as “If it is known that the affiliated articles are dispatched first, the Fair Trade Commission will be caught” as a basis for malicious driving dispatch.
Regarding this, another lawyer said, “It is difficult to determine whether the KakaoTalk conversation between employees was actually reflected in the final decision or whether it was a simple discussion process.”
However, there are cases in which Naver (NAVER) has lost a lawsuit once morest the Fair Trade Commission in a similar case. In response, some say that the possibility of Kakao Mobility’s defeat cannot be ruled out, saying, “Isn’t the FTC logic for Naver Shopping and Kakao Mobility the same in that they took unfair profits by adjusting the algorithm?”
There is also an analysis that the nature of the two incidents is completely different. In the case of Naver Shopping, specific minutes of the meeting containing the process of adjusting the algorithm were cited as the basis for sanctions, which was the cause of Naver’s defeat. On the other hand, it is pointed out that the KakaoTalk conversation between employees, which became a problem in the Kakao Mobility case, is difficult to view as circumstantial evidence.
The high fine of 25.7 billion won is also expected to be a key issue in the administrative litigation. The Fair Trade Commission used both affiliated and non-affiliated taxi sales as the standard in the process of calculating the penalty. Regarding this, there is an opinion that only the sales of affiliated taxis that benefited from the algorithm should be used as a parameter for fines. Even if Kakao Mobility did an unfair act, it is expected that at least the penalty will be reduced. An official from the legal profession said, “It will also be important to consider which side has gained related benefits through discriminatory acts and how far the relevance is.”
[저작권자 @머니투데이, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]
