Global Courant 2023-04-13 10:30:20
SEOUL — South Korea’s top court said Thursday that Alphabet’s Google must reveal whether the tech giant shared local user information with third parties, Yonhap news agency reported, sending the case back to a lower court.
The Supreme Court’s decision came after a group of four plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2014 against Google and its South Korean unit to force the company to disclose its handling of local users’ privacy data.
The group alleged that the tech company had been sharing personal user information through PRISM, a US National Security Agency surveillance program.
“We will carefully review the full written decision of the Supreme Court,” a Google spokesperson said.
On the same day, the Supreme Court also upheld an earlier ruling ordering Qualcomm to pay a fine of approximately 1 trillion won ($S$1 billion) for abusing its dominant market position, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said.
Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Supreme Court’s decisions in both cases are in line with South Korea’s recent tendency to take a tough stance on regulatory issues involving foreign tech giants.
On Wednesday, South Korea’s antitrust regulator fined Google 42.1 billion won for blocking the release of mobile video games on a competitor’s platform.
The KFTC said the action against the US tech giant was part of the government’s efforts to ensure fair markets. REUTERS
