SEOUL, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- Members of the South Korean National Assembly pressured the representatives of Google and Netflix to come up with measures to deal with the surging online traffic the two companies account for in Korea.
The matter came arose last year when a Seoul court ruled against Netflix, which had been avoiding paying network usage fees to Internet service operators.
Netflix and Google have faced similar issues in Europe, where several member countries have asked the European Commission to order the companies to pay their fair share of network expenses.
"Google and Netflix account for 34.3% of domestic traffic," Rep. Hong Suk-joon of the governing People Power Party said during a parliamentary hearing Friday. "As global corporations, it's their responsibility to review the problem more proactively."
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Rep. Kim Yeung-shik of the ruling party agreed: "Since they are using the network, they should pay the fees."
In response, Netflix Korea Director Liz Chung said the company was trying to find ways to deal with the rising traffic using the latest technology.
"Please take into consideration that Netflix has spent almost $700 million on South Korean content," Chung said.
Rep. Yoon Young-chan of the main opposition Democratic Party said Google Korea had not paid the network fees either, citing the fact that the firm paid just $97 million in total taxes last year in Korea.
Rep. Kim Young-joo of the Democratic Party concurred.
"Koreans paid around $1.4 billion to Google using credit cards last year. But it claims that its sales were a mere $200 million. We cannot but suspect that the firm is evading taxes," she said.
Google Korea country director Kim Kyoung-hoon said the Korean entity focuses only on the advertisement side, while Google Play's business and revenue are the province of its Singapore and Asia-Pacific operations.
When asked about the number of Google Korea employees and Korean subscribers to YouTube, Kim Kyoung-hoon said he did not know, angering lawmakers.
