Korea's FTC Opens a Review of Platform Commission and Ad Fee Structures

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) is launching a review of trading practices and unfair conduct across three major online platform sectors: delivery, open marketplaces, and lodging. The review examines commission and advertising fee structures along with data policies, while gathering new categories of unfair practice and harm reported by merchants on those platforms.

What the Review Targets

The work is framed as a fact-finding survey of trading conditions and unfair practices between major platforms and the businesses selling on them. Two axes:

• How fees and advertising costs are assessed — on what basis, at what level, and whether the structure is explainable to the merchant paying it.
• Contract practices — how terms change, what notice is given, and how data policies operate in practice.

Based on the findings, the KFTC says it will consider corrective measures and policy recommendations to improve trading practices and protect merchants.

Why Advertising Costs Are In Scope

Commission rates are a long-running issue. What distinguishes this review is that advertising spend is bundled into it.

On platforms, advertising and visibility are hard to separate. Once the top of a results page becomes ad inventory, a merchant who does not buy ads loses visibility itself. In that structure, ad spend stops being growth investment and becomes a fixed cost of holding position. The review's explicit focus on assessment structure, not just rates, points at exactly this.

And Why Data Policy Is Included

Ownership of and access to transaction data is also in scope. How much of their own sales and customer data a merchant can see and use directly determines their negotiating leverage. When data stays only with the platform, merchants lose the basis for building alternative channels.

What to Prepare Now

Regardless of how the review lands, some preparation costs nothing.

• Calculate the effective take rate per channel. Add advertising spend, promotion cost-sharing, and payment fees on top of the headline commission. Without that number, you cannot negotiate or decide to leave.
• Split advertising by purpose. Separate spend for acquiring new customers from spend defending existing ranking. A high share of the latter is a channel cost, not a marketing budget.
• Measure your owned channels. The only way to reduce platform dependence is to know what the alternatives actually produce.

For a parallel shift in platform ad serving policy, see Google Expands Limited Ad Serving Across All Ads.

Regulation can change structure, but it moves slowly. In the interim, the party that knows its real cost base is the one with leverage.