Key Sentence:
- South Korean internet giants are increasingly at the forefront of the country’s regulators.
- Which have carved out billions of dollars from the wealth of the country’s wealthiest people.
Kim Beom-soo, founder Korean Internet Titan and chairman of Kakao, saw his fortune drop by $4.5 billion after peaking in late June. When he saw the original entrepreneur with a net worth of $16.2 billion US dollars topped the country’s wealth list. But since then, shares in his Seoul-based company have fallen more than 26 percent. Bringing his real-time billionaire fortune to $11.7 billion.
Leading lawmakers and regulators are tightening the rules on the Internet in a way that could hinder the fast-growing company known for its mobile messengers.
At a symposium last week, Kim Jushin, Korean Internet Titan, vice president of the Fair Trade Commission. His agency was looking at ways to tackle tech companies such as Kakao and searchgiant Naver. Which were alleged to have abused their dominance UPI reported on Friday. The report said Kim found that both companies had used their positions as “referees and players” to drive traffic to their own companies.
According to the Korea Newsdirectory3 website, Kakao explicitly criticized that it used low fees to eliminate competitors. And then used its “monopoly position” to increase platform fees and usage prices. It said Democratic Party lawmakers Song Gap-Seok and Lee Dong-Ju discussed ways to regulate all unfair cocoa trading practices.
The 11-year-old company, along with its ambassador KakaoTalk, runs a bank and online unit specializing in fintech, digital cartoons, and adventure. Today it stands alongside the largest group of companies in South Korea. Including Samsung, Hyundai, SK, and LG, known as Chaebol. Subsidiary 118 founded blockchain firm Krust and non-profit blockchain platform Klaytn Foundation in Singapore last month.