S. Korea to pressure global internet giants Netflix, Google, and Facebook to improve services

South Korea's revised Telecommunication Business Act will take effect on Dec. 10, making internet giants, such as Netflix, Google, and Facebook responsible for providing stable services to users regardless of the devices or ISPs used.

The amendment also applied to local players Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp.

The internet firms are also tasked to take measures to prevent excessive online traffic by working with ISPs.

Large online service companies account for 1 percent or more of the country's total data traffic in the last three months of a year.

Failure to obey the new rules would lead o an administrative fine of up to 20 million won.

However, the relatively paltry fine left some critics doubting the revision's effectiveness.

Officials from Korea Internet Corporations Association also wonder what the revision wants to achieve, as the companies would naturally work toward stable services.

Netflix and Google, which have boosted their presence in the country, have recently come under scrutiny due to service complaints.

YouTube, operated by Google, faced criticism after its service went down for hours last month.

On the other hand, Netflix was accused of not properly responding to service issues in May and June.

Some ISPs have requested foreign content providers to share network costs as they take a lot of the online traffic.

Netflix Services Korea Ltd., which is embroiled in a legal battle with local major ISP SK Broadband Co., insists that it has no obligation to pay network usage fees over data traffic.