The Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) held, sponsored by the Korea Communications Commission, ‘The 2 nd Broadcasting-Communications Ex Post Regulation Seminar: Review on Consumer Protection in Smart Environment' on November 25 at Seoul Royal Hotel.

This seminar, the second annual meeting since ‘The 1 st Broadcasting-Communications Ex Post Regulation Seminar: Ex Post Regulation in Broadcasting-Communications Convergence' in June, was held to review newly emerging issues regarding consumer protection with wide use of smart devices and services and to explore the right direction.

Prof. Seung-Sin Lee of Konkuk University moderated the seminar and speakers, Prof. Sung-Hwan Kim of Ajou University, Prof. Yeun-Dek Chung of Konkuk University, Senior Research Joo-Yong Jun of KISDI and Prof. Chang-Geun Hwang of Hongik University, explored current issues, and had in-depth discussions.

The first speaker, Prof. Sung-Hwan Kim talked about, under the title of ‘Net Neutrality Principal and Consumer Interests', the issues of traffic explosion and fair competition from users' perspective and how to respond to post-net neutrality issues.

Prof. Yeun-Dek Chung, the second speaker, made a presentation on ‘Copyrights Issue in Cloud Service and Its Influence on Consumer'. Controversies between content providers and cloud service operators were examined as well as the impact on users and future direction.

Senior Research Joo-Yong Jun stressed that enhancing consumer rights should come before dispute resolution hence necessary information should be readily accessible for users, which is also the way to enhance effectiveness in the market and to promote consumer protection.

Lastly, Prof. Chang-Geun Hwang claimed that new types of disputes emerging in broadcasting-communications convergence require the upgrade of consumer protection system to cover new services by including responses to new types of disputes and introducing collective dispute resolution system.

Every speaker's presentation was followed by comments on the issue made by Hye- Seung Jeong (Manager, Daum communications), Kyung-Jin Choi (Professor, Kyungwon University), and Kyuong-Oh Jung (Lawyer, KISDI). In the plenary discussion session, Joo-Hong Lee (Director, Green Consumer Network) and Sang-Jin Yoon (CEO, Widecomms) presented their opinions.

This seminar extensively reviewed issues concerning consumer protection and offered an opportunity to have insightful discussion to set the mid-to-long term direction in consumer protection

Contact: Researcher Ju-Yong Lee of Telecommunications Policy Research Division (Tel. 02-570-4164)